hing in your books that will settle
the whole matter," said Andrew. Ellen was not eating much supper,
and that troubled him. Andrew always knew just how much Ellen ate.

"I don't know what Aunt Eva and poor little Amabel will do," said
she. Ellen's lip quivered.

"Pass the cake to Miss Higgins," said Fanny, sharply, to Andrew. She
gave him a significant wink as she did so, not to talk more about
it.

"Try some of that chocolate cake, Miss Higgins."

"Thank you," said Miss Higgins, unexcitedly.

Andrew had his own cause of worry, and finally reverted to it,
eating his food with no more conception of the savor than if it were
in another man's mouth. He was sorry enough for his wife's sister,
and recognized it as an added weight to his own burden, but just at
present all he could think of was the question if Miss Higgins would
ask for her pay again that night. He had not a dollar in his pocket.
He had been dunned that afternoon by the man who had lent the money
to buy Ellen's watch, there were two new dunning letters in his
pocket, and now if that keen little dressmaker, who fairly looked to
him like a venomous insect, as she sat eating rather voraciously of
the chocolate cake, should ask him again for the three dollars due
her that night! He would not have cared so much, if it were not for
the fact that she would ask him before his wife and Ellen, and the
question about the money in the savings-bank, which was a species of
nightmare to him, would be sure to come to the front.

Suddenly it struck Andrew that he might run away, that he might slip
out after supper, and either go into his mother's house or down the
street. He finally decided on the former, since he reasoned, with a
pitiful cunning, that if he went down the street he would have to
take off his slippers and put on his shoes, and that would at once
betray him and lead to the possible arrest of his flight.

So after supper, while Miss Higgins was trying a waist on Ellen, and
Fanny was clearing the table, Andrew, bareheaded and in his
slippers, prepared to carry his plan into execution. He got out
without being seen, and hurried around the rear of the house, out of
view from the sitting-room windows, resolving on the way that in
order to avert the danger of a possible following him to the
sanctuary of his mother's house, he had perhaps better slip down
into the orchard behind it and see if the porter apples were ripe.
But when, stooping as if beneath some