cut the Gordian knot. He grabbed the
little dress of bright woollen stuff, which lay partly made upon the
table, and crammed it into the stove, and a reek of burning wool
filled the room. Then both women turned upon him with a combination
of anger to which his wrath was wildfire.

Andrew caught up little Ellen, who was beginning to look scared,
wrapped the first thing he could seize around her, and fairly fled
across the yard to his mother's. Then he sat down and wept like a
boy, and his pride left him at last. "Oh, mother," he sobbed, "if it
were not for the child, I would go away, for my home is a hell!"

Mrs. Zelotes stood clasping little Ellen, who clung to her,
trembling. "Well, come over here with me," she said, "you and
Ellen."

"Live here in the next house!" said Andrew. "Do you suppose Fanny
would have the child living under her very eyes in the next house?
No, there is no way out of the misery--no way; but if it was not for
the child, I would go!"

Andrew burst out in such wild sobs that his mother released Ellen
and ran to him; and the child, trembling and crying with a curious
softness, as of fear at being heard, ran out of the house and back
to her home. "Oh, mother," she cried, breaking in upon the dialogue
of anger which was still going on there with her little tremulous
flute--"oh, mother, father is crying!"

"I don't care," answered her mother, fiercely, her temper causing
her to lose sight of the child's agitation. "I don't care. If it
wasn't for you, I would leave him. I wouldn't live as I am doing. I
would leave everybody. I am tired of this awful life. Oh, if it
wasn't for you, Ellen, I would leave everybody and start fresh!"

"You can leave _me_ whenever you want to," said Eva, her handsome
face burning red with wrath, and she went out of the room, which was
suffocating with the fumes of the burning wool, tossing her black
head, all banged and coiled in the latest fashion.

Of late years Fanny had sunk her personal vanity further and further
in that for her child. She brushed her own hair back hard from her
temples, and candidly revealed all her unyouthful lines, and dwelt
fondly upon the arrangement of little Ellen's locks, which were of a
fine, pale yellow, as clear as the color of amber.

She never recut her skirts or her sleeves, but she studied anxiously
all the slightest changes in children's fashions. After her sister
had left the room with a loud bang of the door, she sat for a mo