, without attempt to master or extinguish
it.

There is a certain careless happiness in the artistic soul that
is satisfied with the present, and does not look into the future.
The enjoyment of the hour, the banquet off the decked table, the
crown of roses freshly blown, suffice the artist's soul. It has no
prevision of the morrow--makes no provision for the winter.

That the marriage of Mehetabel with Jonas had raised barriers
between them was hardly considered. That the Broom-Squire might
resent having him hover round his young flower, did not enter
into Iver's calculations; least of all did it concern him that
he was breaking the girl's heart, and forever making it impossible
for her to reconcile herself to her position.

As Iver walked home over the common, and enjoyed the warmth and
brilliancy of the sun, he asked himself again, why his mother
had not prepared him for the marriage of Mehetabel.

Mehetabel had certainly not taken Jonas because she loved him.
She was above sordid considerations. What, then, had induced her
to take the man? She had been happy and contented at the Ship;
why, then, did she leave it?

On reaching home, he put the question to his mother. "It is a
puzzle to me, which I cannot unravel, why has Matabel become
Bideabout's wife?"

"Why should she not?" asked his mother in return. "It was a catch
for such as she--a girl without a name, and bare of a dower. She
has every reason to thank me for having pushed the marriage on."

Iver looked at his mother with surprise.

"Then you had something to do with it?"

"Of course I had," answered she. "I did my duty. I am not so young
as I was. I had to think for Matabel's future. She is no child of
mine. She can expect nothing from your father nor from me. When a
good offer came, then I told her to accept and be thankful. She
is a good girl, and has been useful in the house, and some people
think her handsome. But young men don't court a girl who has no
name, and has had three men hanged because of her."

"Mother! what nonsense! The men were executed because they murdered
her father."

"It is all one. She is marked with the gallows. Ill-luck attaches
to her. There has been a blight on her from the beginning. I mind
when her father chucked her down all among the fly-poison. Now she
has got the Broom-Squire, she may count herself lucky, and thank
me for it."

"Good heavens!" exclaimed Iver. "Then this marriage is your doing?"

"Yes--I told