t used to make Mrs. Drugg awfully angry.
She wanted him to be a storekeeper. She made Hopewell be one. How she
ever came to marry such a man as Hopewell's father, I do not see."

"She must have loved him," said Janice wistfully.

"Of course!" cried the bride, quite as innocently. "She couldn't have
married him otherwise."

"And was Hopewell their only child?"

"Yes. He seldom saw his father, but he fairly worshiped him. His
father was a handsome man--and he used to play his violin for Hopewell.
It was this very instrument my husband prizes so greatly now. When Mr.
Drugg died the violin was hid away for years in the garret.

"You've heard how Hopewell found it, and strung it himself, and used to
play on it slyly, and so taught himself to be a fiddler, before his
mother had any idea he knew one note from another. She was extremely
deaf at the last and could not hear him playing at odd times, up in the
attic."

"My!" said Janice, "he must have really loved music."

"It was his only comfort," said the wife softly. "When he was
twenty-one what little property his father had left came to him. But
his mother did not put the violin into the inventory; so Hopewell said:
'Give me the fiddle and you can have the rest.'"

"He loved it so!" murmured Janice appreciatively:

"Yes. I guess that was almost the only time in his life that Hopewell
really asserted himself. With his mother, at least. She was a very
stubborn woman, and very stern; more so than my own mother. But Mrs.
Drugg had to give in to him about the violin, for she needed Hopewell
to run the store for her. They had little other means.

"But she made him marry 'Cinda Stone," added 'Rill. "Poor 'Cinda! she
was never happy. Not that Hopewell did not treat her well. You know,
Janice, he is the sweetest-tempered man that ever lived.

"And that is what hurts me more than anything else," sobbed the bride,
dabbling her eyes with her handkerchief. "When they say Hopewell gets
intoxicated, and is cruel to me and to Lottie, it seems as though--as
though I could scratch their eyes out!"

For a moment Hopewell's wife looked so spiteful, and her eyes snapped
so, that Janice wanted to laugh. Of course, she did not do so. But to
see the mild and sweet-tempered 'Rill display such venom was amusing.

The store door opened with a bang. The girl and the woman both started
up, Lottie remaining asleep.

"Hush! Never mind!" whispered Janice to 'Rill. "I'