on his twenty-first birthday, and
brought her home.

II.

Edith was a quiet little creature, with a soft voice, and a pale, sweet
face, and frail figure. She came up to Anson English when she entered
the house, and put her hands timidly upon his arms.

"I want you to love me," she said; "I have had no father or mother since
I can remember. I want to call you father, and I want to make you happy
if I can."

"Well, I'll tell you how," the old man retorted. "Discharge the hired
girl, and make good bread. That'll make me happy,"--and he laughed
harshly.

Edith shrank from his rough words, so void of the sympathy and love she
longed for. But she discharged the girl within a week, and tried to make
good bread. It was not a success, however, and the old man was not slow
to express his dissatisfaction. Edith left the table in tears.

"Another dribbler--'Liz'beth was always cryin' just that way over every
little thing," sighed the old man.

Edith eventually conquered the difficulties of bread making, and became
a famous cook. But she did not please her husband's father any the
better by this achievement.

"You're always a-fixin' up some new sort of trash for the table," he
said to her one day. "_Dessert_ is it, you call it? 'Nuff to make a
man's patience _desert_ him to see sugar and flour wasted so. 'Liz'beth
liked your fancy cooking, but I cured her of it."

"Yes, and you killed her too," cried Edith, for the first time since her
marriage losing control of her temper and answering back. "Everybody
says you worried her into the grave. But you won't succeed so well with
me. I will live just to defy you, if no more. And I'll show you that
I'll not bear everything, too."

It was all over in a moment, and it was not repeated. Indeed, Edith was
kinder and gentler and more submissive in her manner after that for
days, as sweet natures always are when they have once broken over the
rules which govern their lives.

Yet the old man always spoke of Edith as a virago after that.

"She's worse'n 'Liz'beth," he said, "and she had a temper of her own at
times that would just _singe_ things."

Ben passed most of his evenings and a good part of his days at the
village "store." He came home the worse for drink occasionally, and he
was absolutely indifferent to all the work and care of the farm and
family.

"She's just like 'Liz'beth," the old man said to his neighbors; "she
don't make home entertainin' for her husband. But