time in Lucina's chamber; then Abigail came down
alone to her husband in the sitting-room.

The Squire, who was as alert as any fox where his beloved daughter
was concerned, had scented something wrong, and looked up anxiously
when his wife entered.

"She isn't sick, is she?" he asked.

"She will be, if we don't take care," Abigail replied, shortly.

"You don't mean it!" cried the Squire, jumping up. "I'll go for the
doctor this minute. It was the heat. Why didn't you keep her at home,
Abigail?"

"Sit down, for mercy's sake, Eben!" said Abigail. She sat down
herself as she spoke, and crossed her little slender feet and hands
with a quick, involuntary motion, which was usual to her. "It is as I
told you," said she. Abigail Merritt, good comrade of a wife though
she was, yet turned aggressively feminine at times.

The Squire sat down. "What do you mean, Abigail?"

"I mean--that I wish that Edwards boy had never entered this house."

"Abigail, you don't mean that Lucina-- What _do_ you mean, Abigail?"
finished the Squire, feebly.

"I mean that I was right in thinking some harm would come from that
boy being here so much," replied his wife. Then she went on and
repeated in substance the innocent little confession which Lucina had
made to her in her chamber.

The Squire listened, his bearded chin sunken on his chest, his
forehead, under the crest of yellow locks, bent gloomily.

"It seems as if you and I had done everything that we could for the
child ever since she was born," he said, huskily, when his wife had
finished. His first emotion was one of cruel jealousy of his
daughter's love for another man.

Abigail looked at him with quick pity, but scarcely with full
understanding. She could never lose, as completely as he, their
daughter, through a lover. She had not to yield her to another of the
same sex, and in that always the truest sting of jealousy lies.

"So far as that goes, it is no more than we had to expect, Eben," she
said. "You know that. I turned away from my parents for you."

"I know it, Abigail, but--I thought, maybe, it wouldn't come yet a
while. I've done all I could. I bought her the little horse--she
seemed real pleased with that, Abigail, you know. I thought, maybe,
she would be contented a while here with us."

"Eben Merritt, you don't for a minute think that she can be anywhere
but with us, for all this!"

"It's the knowledge that she's willing to be that comes hard," said
the Sq