ter, and, I thought, a
little disposed to keep Bessie from talking to me. The latter appeared
troubled somewhat, and looked at me in an anxious way, as if longing to
rush into my arms and ask me all about it and say how willingly she
forgave me; but her mother kept her within the circle of her influence,
and I sat apart, harboring unutterable thoughts and saying nothing. At
last Mrs. Pinkerton arose, and said sweetly, "I wouldn't stay out any
later, dear, it is rather damp."

"Stay with me, Bessie," I said, "I want to speak to you. Your mother is
at liberty to go in whenever she pleases." It was then she gave me a
disdainful look and swept in, and I muttered the wish regarding her
transportation to a distant clime, which brought out the gentle rebuke
with which this story opens.

I saw no prospect of enjoying a longer stay at the Fairview, unless some
burglary or terrible accident should occur to give me chance for a new
display of my heroic qualities, and even then, I thought, it would be of
no use, for I should spoil it all next day. So we determined to go home
a week earlier than we had intended. The Marstons were going to Canada
and Lake George, and wouldn't reach home till October. Mr. Desmond and
his niece stayed a month longer where they were, and that would bring
them home about the same time. Bessie and I went home with a lack of
that buoyant bliss with which we had travelled to the mountains and
spent those first two weeks. There was no change in us, but it was all
due to my mother-in-law.

CHAPTER VI.

WHAT IS HOME WITHOUT A MOTHER-IN-LAW?

Home! We were back from the mountains, and our brief wedding-journey had
become a thing of the past. Mrs. Pinkerton's iron-bound trunk had been
reluctantly deposited in her bed-chamber by a puffing and surly
hack-driver; and here was I, installed in the little cottage as head of
the household, for weal or for woe. It was Mrs. Pinkerton's cottage, to
be sure, but I entered it with the determination not to live there as a
boarder or as a guest subject to the proprietor's condescending
hospitality. I was able and not unwilling to establish a home of my own,
and inasmuch as I refrained from doing so because of Mrs. Pinkerton's
desire to keep her daughter with her, I had the right to consider myself
under no obligation to my mother-in-law.

The cottage was far from being a disagreeable place in itself. It was
small, but extremely neat and pleasant. The rooms were