would not suffer him to tell Atterbury that he had come
to his senses and bidden farewell to the old life, or so he hoped and
believed. To lose a wife and child in a way infinitely worse than
death; to hear the unwelcome truth that as a husband you have grown so
offensive as to be beyond endurance; to have your own sister tell you
that you richly deserve such treatment; to be virtually dismissed from a
valuable business connection, all this is enough to sober any man above
the grade of a moral idiot, and John was not that; he was simply a
self-indulgent, pleasure-loving, thoughtless, willful fellow, without
any great amount of principle. He took his medicine, however, said
nothing, and did his share of the business from day to day doggedly,
keeping away from his partner as much as possible.

Ellen, the faithful maid of all work, stayed on with him at the old
home; Jack wrote to him every week, and often came to spend Sunday with
him.

"Aunt Louisa's real good to me," he told his father, "but she's not like
mother. Seems to me mother's kind of selfish staying away from us so
long. When do you expect her back?"

"I don't know; not before winter, I'm afraid; and don't call her
selfish, I won't have it! Your mother never knew she had a self."

"If she'd only left Sue behind, we could have had more good times, we
three together!"

"No, our family is four, Jack, and we can never have any good times,
one, two, or three of us, because we're four! When one's away, whichever
it is, it's wrong, but it's the worst when it's mother. Does your Aunt
Louisa write to her?"

"Yes, sometimes, but she never lets me post the letters."

"Do you write to your mother? You ought to, you know, even if you don't
have time for me. You could ask your aunt to enclose your letters in
hers."

"Do you write to her, father?"

"Yes, I write twice a week," John answered, thinking drearily of the
semi-weekly notes posted in Susanna's empty worktable upstairs. Would
she ever read them? He doubted it, unless he died, and she came back to
settle his affairs; but of course he would n't die, no such good luck.
Would a man die who breakfasted at eight, dined at one, supped at six,
and went to bed at ten? Would a man die who worked in the garden an
hour every afternoon, with half a day Saturday; that being the task most
disagreeable to him and most appropriate therefore for penance?

Susanna loved flowers and had always wanted a garden, but John had b