r. Haven't I promised to hoe
out the rooms myself, immediately after the conclusion of the solemn
services?"

And Mr. Foster bestowed a sudden troubled look on Abbie, which she
answered by saying in a low voice, "I should recall my invitations to
them under such circumstances."

"You will do no such thing," her father replied sharply. "The
invitations are issued in your parents' names, and we shall have no
such senseless proceedings connected with them When you are in your
own house you will doubtless be at liberty to do as you please; but
in the meantime it would be well to remember that you belong to your
father's family at present."

Ralph was watching the flushing cheek and quivering lip of his young
sister, and at this point flung down the book with which he had been
idly playing, with an impatient exclamation: "It strikes me, father,
that you are making a tremendous din about a little matter. I don't
object to a glass of wine myself, almost under any circumstances, and
I think this excruciating sensitiveness on the subject is absurd and
ridiculous, and all that sort of thing; but at the same time I should
be willing to undertake the job of smashing every wine bottle there is
in the cellar at this moment, if I thought that Sis' last hours in
the body, or at least in the paternal mansion, would be made any more
peaceful thereby."

During this harangue the elder Mr. Ried had time to grow ashamed of
his sharpness, and answered in his natural tone. "I am precisely
of your opinion, my son. We are making 'much ado about nothing.' We
certainly have often entertained company before, and Abbie has sipped
her wine with the rest of us without sustaining very material injury
thereby, so far as I can see. And here is Ester, as stanch a church
member as any of you, I believe, but that doesn't seem to forbid her
behaving in a rational manner, and partaking of whatever her friends
provide for her entertainment. Why can not the rest of you be equally
sensible?"

During the swift second of time which intervened between that sentence
and her reply Ester had three hard things to endure--a sting from
her restless conscience, a look of mingled pain and anxiety from Mr.
Foster, and one of open-eyed and mischievous surprise from Ralph. Then
she spoke rapidly and earnestly. "Indeed, Uncle Ralph, I beg you will
not judge of any other person by my conduct in this matter. I am very
sorry, and very much ashamed that I have been so weak