e passers-by and glancing at his door as if he
expected the first assault to be made there. Then as the day wore on,
and he felt sure that what he so much dreaded had really come to pass,
that the baggage expected last night had certainly arrived by this time
and spread itself over his house, he could endure the suspense no
longer, and startled Mark with the announcement that he was going home,
and should not return again that day.

"Going home, when Leavitt is to call at three!" Mark said, in much
surprise, and feeling that it would be a relief to unburden himself to
some one, the story came out how Wilford had seen Aunt Betsy at the
opera, and expected to find her at Madison Square.

"I wish I had answered her letter about that confounded sheep pasture,"
he said, "for I would rather give a thousand dollars--yes, ten
thousand--than have her with us to-day. I did not marry my wife's
relations," he continued, excitedly, adding, as Mark looked quickly up,
"Of course I don't mean Helen. She is right; and though she rasps me a
little, I'd rather have her than not. Neither do I mean that doctor, for
he is a gentleman. But this Barlow woman--oh! Mark, I am all of dripping
sweat just to think of it."

He did not say what he intended doing, but with Mark Ray's ringing laugh
in his ears, passed into the street, and hailing a stage was driven
toward home, just as a downtown stage deposited on the walk in front of
his office "that Barlow woman" and Mattie Tubbs!

CHAPTER XXVIII.

AUNT BETSY CONSULTS A LAWYER.

Aunt Betsy did not rest well after her return from the opera. Novelty
and excitement always kept her awake, while her mind was not wholly at
ease with regard to what she had done. Not that she really felt she had
committed a sin, except so far as the example might be bad, but she
feared the result, should it ever reach the orthodox church at Silverton.

"There's no telling what Deacon Bannister would do--send a subpoena
after me, for what I know," she thought, as she laid her tired head upon
her pillow and went off into that weary state halfway between sleep and
wakefulness, a state in which operas, play actors, Katy in full dress,
Helen and Mark Ray, choruses, music by the orchestra, to which she had
been guilty of beating her foot, Deacon Bannister and the whole offended
brotherhood, with constable and subpoenas, were pretty equally blended
together--the music which she liked, and the subpoena which she fear