the letter brought a cloud on Dr. Howe's face; he wanted to forget
it, he was impatient to shake off the unpleasant remembrances it roused,
and so engaged was he in this that by the time he had reached the rectory
Mr. Denner and his perplexities were quite out of his mind, though the
lawyer's face was still tingling with mortification.

Mr. Denner could not keep his thoughts from his puzzle. Supper-time came,
and he was still struggling to reach a conclusion. He carved the cold
mutton with more than usual precision, and ate it in anxious abstraction.
The room was chilly; draughts from the narrow windows made the lamp
flare, and the wind from under the closed door raised the carpet in
swells along the floor. He did not notice Willie, who kept his hands in
his pockets for warmth, and also because he had nothing for them to do.

When Mr. Denner rang for Mary, the boy said with anxious politeness,
"Was--was the mutton good, sir?"

Willie had been well brought up,--he was not to speak unless spoken to;
but under the press of hunger nature rebelled, for his uncle, in his
absorption, had forgotten to help him to anything.

Mr. Denner carved some meat for the child, and then sat and watched him
with such gloomy eyes, that Willie was glad to finish and push his chair
back for prayers.

The table was cleared, and then Mary put the Bible in front of Mr.
Denner, and Jay's "Morning and Evening Exercises," open at the proper
day. Two candles in massive candlesticks on either side of his book gave
an unsteady light, and when they flickered threw strange shadows on the
ceiling. The frames which held the paintings of Mr. Denner's grandparents
loomed up dark and forbidding, and Mary, who always sat with her arms
rolled in her apron and her head bowed upon her ample breast, made a
grotesque shadow, which danced and bobbed about on the door of the
pantry. Mary generally slept through prayers, while for Willie it was
a time of nervous dread. The room was so dark, and his uncle's voice so
strange and rolling, the little fellow feared to kneel down and turn his
back to the long table with its ghastly white cloth; his imagination
pictured fearful things stealing upon him from the mysterious space
beneath it, and his heart beat so he could scarcely hear the words of the
prayer. But Mr. Denner enjoyed it. Not, however, because prayer was the
expression of his soul; family prayer was merely a dignified and proper
observance. Mr. Denner would