itation appeared on his part, she swore to him that nothing should
induce her to become Mrs. Robinson till he had packed his things
and was gone. Mr. Brown had a heart to feel, and at this moment he
could have told how much sharper than a serpent's tooth is a child's
ingratitude!

But he would have gone; he would have left the house, although he had
begun to comprehend that in leaving it he must probably lose much of
his authority over the money taken in the shop; he would, however,
have done so, had not Mrs. Jones come down upon him with the whole
force of her tongue, and the full violence of her malice. When
Robinson should have become one with Maryanne Brown, and should also
have become the resident partner, then would the influence of Mrs.
Jones in that establishment have been brought to a speedy close.

The reader shall not be troubled with those frightful quarrels in
which each of the family was pitted against the others. Sarah Jane
declared to her father, in terms which no child should have used to
her parent, that he must be an idiot and doting if he allowed his
youngest daughter and her lover to oust him from his house and from
all share in the management of the business. Brown then appealed
piteously to Maryanne, and begged that he might be allowed to occupy
a small closet as his bed-room. But Maryanne was inexorable. He had
undertaken to go, and unless he did go she would never omit to din
into his ears this breach of his direct promise to her. Maryanne
became almost great in her anger, as with voice raised so as to drown
her sister's weaker tones, she poured forth her own story of her own
wrongs.

"It has been so from the beginning," she said. "When I first knew
Brisket, it was not for any love I had for the man, but because
mother took him up. Mother promised him money; and then I said
I'd marry him,--not because I cared for him, but because he was
respectable and all right. And then mother hadn't the money when the
pinch came, and, of course, Brisket wasn't going to be put upon;--why
should he? So I took up with Robinson, and you knew it, father."

"I did, Maryanne; I did."

"Of course you did. I wasn't going to make a fool of myself for no
man. I have got myself to look to; and if I don't do it myself, they
who is about me won't do it for me."

"Your old father would do anything for you."

"Father, I hate words! What I want is deeds. Well, then;--Robinson
came here and was your partner, and meanw