her
daughter, and waited for the issue of this new struggle between life and
death. There was no visible excitement, but her mouth was closely set
and her cold blue eyes fixed in a kind of vacant stare.

Edith was Mrs. Dinneford's only child, and she had loved her with
the strong, selfish love of a worldly and ambitious woman. In her
own marriage she had not consulted her heart. Mr. Dinneford's social
position and wealth were to her far more than his personal endowments.
She would have rejected him without a quicker pulse-beat if these had
been all he had to offer. He was disappointed, she was not. Strong,
self-asserting, yet politic, Mrs Dinneford managed her good husband
about as she pleased in all external matters, and left him to the free
enjoyment of his personal tastes, preferences and friendships. The
house they lived in, the furniture it contained, the style and equipage
assumed by the family, were all of her choice, Mr. Dinneford giving
merely a half-constrained or half-indifferent consent. He had learned,
by painful and sometimes humiliating experience, that any contest with
Mrs. Helen Dinneford upon which he might enter was sure to end in his
defeat.

He was a man of fine moral and intellectual qualities. His wealth gave
him leisure, and his tastes, feelings and habits of thought drew
him into the society of some of the best men in the city where he
lived--best in the true meaning of that word. In all enlightened social
reform movements you would be sure of finding Mr. Howard Dinneford. He
was an active and efficient member in many boards of public charity, and
highly esteemed in them all for his enlightened philanthropy and sound
judgment. Everywhere but at home he was strong and influential; there he
was weak, submissive and of little account. He had long ago accepted
the situation, making a virtue of necessity. A different man--one of
stronger will and a more imperious spirit--would have held his own, even
though it wrought bitterness and sorrow. But Mr. Dinneford's aversion
to strife, and gentleness toward every one, held him away from conflict,
and so his home was at least tranquil.

Mrs. Dinneford had her own way, and so long as her husband made no
strong opposition to that way all was peaceful.

For Edith, their only child, who was more like her father than her
mother, Mr. Dinneford had the tenderest regard. The well-springs of
love, choked up so soon after his marriage, were opened freely toward