ld marry him against the advice of her friends, and the first
thing she found out was that he had deceived her on one point. She knew
that he had married when almost a boy, and his wife had been long dead,
but he kept from her that he had a son living. His excuse was that he
had heard her say that nothing would induce her to undertake the duties
of a stepmother, and that he feared a refusal on account of Richard. In
this he had overreached himself; she never forgave the deception, and
she barely tolerated the poor boy. I am afraid, from what I heard, that
their short married life was not a happy one. Eleanor had a proud,
jealous temper, but she was truthful by nature, and nothing was so
odious in her eyes as falsehood and deceit. I can feel sorry for her,
for no woman could respect a character like Sefton's, but I have always
blamed her for her hardness to her stepson. His father doted on him, and
Richard was the chief subject of their dissension on his death bed. He
begged his wife to be kinder to the boy, but I do not know if this
appeal softened her. The property belongs, of course, to her stepson,
and in a sense she and her daughter are dependent on him, but it is not
a united household. I know very little about the young man, except that
he is industrious and fond of out-of-door pursuits, and farms his own
estate; but I hear he is a little clownish in appearance. Now we are
stopping, because I have a patient to see here, but I shall not be ten
minutes, and we will resume our conversation presently."

CHAPTER VI.

LITTLE MISS MUCH-AFRAID.

Bessie had plenty of food for meditation while Dr. Lambert paid his
visit to his patient, and he found her apparently absorbed in a brown
study when he returned to the carriage.

"Father dear," she said, rousing herself, as he placed himself beside
her, "I have been thinking over all you have told me, and I cannot help
wondering why you wish me to visit Mrs. Sefton, when she treated you so
badly."

Dr. Lambert was silent for a minute; the question was not an easy one to
answer. His wife had said the very same thing to him the previous
evening:

"I wonder that you care to let Bessie visit at The Grange, when Eleanor
Sartoris treated you so badly." And then she added, "I think she is very
much to blame, too, for her behavior to her stepson. Margaret Tillotson
tells me that he is an honest, good-hearted fellow, though not very
clever, but that want of appreciation has