ey were
on opposite sides. He hated the father with the secret, hypocritical
hatred of the highly moral and religious man. He despised the son. It
is not often that a Christian gentleman has such an opportunity to
combine justice and revenge, to feed to bursting an ancient grudge, the
while conscious that he is but doing his duty.

Said Frank, when he was able to speak: "You have been listening to the
lies of some treacherous clerk here."

"Don't destroy that little book," proceeded Conover tranquilly. "We
can prove that you took it."

Young Gower rose. "I must decline to have anything further to say to
you, sir," said he. "You will leave this office, and you will not be
admitted here again unless you come with proper papers as
administrator."

Conover smiled with cold satisfaction and departed. There followed a
series of quarrels--between Frank and his sister, between Frank and his
mother, between Frank's wife and his mother, between Mildred and her
mother, between the mother and Conover. Mrs. Gower was suspicious of
her son; but she knew her brother for a pinchpenny, exacting the last
drop of what he regarded as his own. And she discovered that, if she
authorized him to act as administrator for her, he could--and beyond
question would--take a large share of the estate. The upshot was that
Frank paid over to his mother and sister forty-seven thousand dollars,
and his mother and her brother stopped speaking to each other.

"I see that you have turned over all your money to mother," said Frank
to Mildred a few days after the settlement.

"Of course," said Mildred. She was in a mood of high scorn for
sordidness--a mood induced by the spectacle of the shameful manners of
Conover, Frank, and his wife.

"Do you think that's wise?" suggested Frank.

"I think it's decent," said Mildred.

"Well, I hope you'll not live to regret it," said her brother.

Neither Mrs. Gower nor her daughter had ever had any experience in the
care of money. To both forty-seven thousand dollars seemed a
fortune--forty-seven thousand dollars in cash in the bank, ready to
issue forth and do their bidding at the mere writing of a few figures
and a signature on a piece of paper. In a sense they knew that for
many years the family's annual expenses had ranged between forty and
fifty thousand, but in the sense of actuality they knew nothing about
it--a state of affairs common enough in families where the man is in
absolute control