ce was flagging a trifle, too, under the stress of the
hot days and the still hotter, breathless nights. The suspicion crossed
her mind now and then that her father's miserliness and fits of temper
might be caused by a mental malady over which he now had little or no
control, having never mastered himself in all his life. Her power of
endurance would be greater, she thought, if only she could be certain
that this theory was true, though her slavery would be just as galling.

It would be so easy for her to go away and earn a living; she who had
never had a day of illness in her life; she who could sew, knit, spin,
weave, and cook. She could make enough money in Biddeford or Portsmouth
to support herself, and Patty, too, until the proper work was found for
both. But there would be a truly terrible conflict of wills, and such
fierce arraignment of her unfilial conduct, such bitter and caustic
argument from her father, such disapproval from the parson and the
neighbors, that her very soul shrank from the prospect. If she could go
alone, and have no responsibility over Patty's future, that would be a
little more possible, but she must think wisely for two.

And how could she leave Ivory when there might perhaps come a crisis in
his life where she could be useful to him? How could she cut herself off
from those Sundays in the choir, those dear fugitive glimpses of him in
the road or at prayer-meeting? They were only sips of happiness,
where her thirsty heart yearned for long, deep draughts, but they were
immeasurably better than nothing. Freedom from her father's heavy yoke,
freedom to work, and read, and sing, and study, and grow,--oh! how she
longed for this, but at what a cost would she gain it if she had to
harbor the guilty conscience of an undutiful and rebellious daughter,
and at the same time cut herself off from the sight of the one being she
loved best in all the world.

She felt drawn towards Ivory's mother to-day. Three weeks had passed
since her talk with Ivory in the churchyard, but there had been no
possibility of an hour's escape from home. She was at liberty this
afternoon--relatively at liberty; for although her work, as usual, was
laid out for her, it could be made up somehow or other before nightfall.
She could drive over to the Boynton's place, hitch her horse in the
woods near the house, make her visit, yet be in plenty of time to go up
to the river field and bring her father home to supper. Patty was o