for her lifelong disappointment, if they denied him. But,
whatever he meant finally to do, he did not ask it; he used his footing
in their house chiefly as a basis for flirtations beyond it. He began
to share his devotions to Ellen with her girl friends, and not with her
girl friends alone. It did not come to scandal, but it certainly came to
gossip about him and a silly young wife; and Kenton heard of it with
a torment of doubt whether Ellen knew of it, and what she would do; he
would wait for her to do herself whatever was to be done. He was never
certain how much she had heard of the gossip when she came to her
mother, and said with the gentle eagerness she had, "Didn't poppa talk
once of going South this winter?"

"He talked of going to New York," the mother answered, with a throb of
hope.

"Well," the girl returned, patiently, and Mrs. Kenton read in her
passivity an eagerness to be gone from sorrow that she would not suffer
to be seen, and interpreted her to her father in such wise that he could
not hesitate.

II.

If such a thing could be mercifully ordered, the order of this event had
certainly been merciful; but it was a cruel wrench that tore Kenton from
the home where he had struck such deep root. When he actually came to
leave the place his going had a ghastly unreality, which was heightened
by his sense of the common reluctance. No one wanted to go, so far as
he could make out, not even Ellen herself, when he tried to make her say
she wished it. Lottie was in open revolt, and animated her young men to
a share in the insurrection. Her older brother was kindly and helpfully
acquiescent, but he was so far from advising the move that Kenton had
regularly to convince himself that Richard approved it, by making him
say that it was only for the winter and that it was the best way of
helping Ellen get rid of that fellow. All this did not enable Kenton to
meet the problems of his younger son, who required him to tell what he
was to do with his dog and his pigeons, and to declare at once how he
was to dispose of the cocoons he had amassed so as not to endanger the
future of the moths and butterflies involved in them. The boy was so
fertile in difficulties and so importunate for their solution, that he
had to be crushed into silence by his father, who ached in a helpless
sympathy with his reluctance.

Kenton came heavily upon the courage of his wife, who was urging forward
their departure with so much ene