aid Aunt Abby, with an unconscious
defiance in her tone. 'There can't anybody hinder their doing anything I
am willing to have them do. My brother wanted to have Mr. Maynard, too;
but I told him no; I'd either be whole guardian or none.'

"'I think good Aunt Abby had had a dim foreboding that Mr. Maynard's
kindness might take a shape which it would be hard to submit to. Great as
her gratitude was, her family pride resented dictation, and resented also
the implied slight to poor Nat. As I look back now, I can see that, except
for this reaction of feeling, she never would have consented so easily to
my undertaking all I undertook, in going to housekeeping alone with that
helpless child, on four hundred dollars a year. Before night it was all
settled, and Miss Penstock went home two hours before her time, 'so
stirred up, somehow,' as she said, 'to think of those blessed children's
coming to live in my house, I couldn't see to thread a needle.' After tea
Mr. Maynard came again: Aunt Abby saw him alone. When she came up-stairs
she had been crying, but her lips were closed more rigidly than I ever saw
them. Aunt Abby could be as determined as Mr. Maynard. All she said to me
of the interview was, 'I don't know now as he'll really give in that he
can't have things as he wants to. For all his laughing and for all his
goodness, I don't believe he is any too comfortable to live with. I
shouldn't wonder if he never spoke to one of us again.'

"But Mr. Maynard was too well-bred a man for any such pettiness as that.
His resentment showed itself merely in a greater courtesy than ever,
combined with a careful absence of all inquiries as to our plans. It hurt
me very much, for I knew how it would have hurt dear papa. But I knew,
too, that I was right and Mr. Maynard was wrong, and that comforted me.

"Four weeks from the day papa was buried, the pretty parsonage was locked
up, cold, dark, empty. Aunt Abby had gone with little Abby to her new
home, and Nat and I were settled at Miss Penstock's. The night before we
moved, Mr. Maynard left a note at the door for me. It contained five
hundred dollars and these words:--

"'Miss Dora will not refuse to accept this from one who hoped to be her
father.'

"But I could not take it. I sent it back to him with a note like this:--

"'DEAR MR. MAYNARD:--I shall never forget that you were willing to be my
father, and I shall always be grateful to you; but I cannot take money
from one who is displ