the water, while the branches overhead threw flickering
shadows on the road before them, until her father's voice roused her.

"You and I are to have some talk together, I believe. Would you like to
see Mrs. Sefton's letter, Bessie? Your mother showed me the one you
received from her daughter." And as Bessie eagerly assented, he handed
it to her.

"It is a very nice letter," she observed, as soon as she had finished
it; "it could not be more kindly expressed."

"No; Mrs. Sefton is a ladylike woman, and she knows exactly what to say.
It is a grand thing to have tact." And then he paused for a moment, and
continued in an amused voice, "The world is a very small place after
all. I have lived long enough in it not to be surprised at running
against all sorts of odd people in all sorts of odd places, but I must
own I was a little taken aback when you brought Miss Sefton into my
house that night."

"You knew Mrs. Sefton when you were a young man, father?"

"I suppose I knew her fairly well, for I was engaged to her for six
months." And as Bessie started, "Well, you will think that an odd speech
for a father to make to his daughter, but, you see, I know our Bessie is
a reliable little woman, who can keep her tongue silent. I have my
reasons for telling you this. You have always been your mother's
companion, as well as my right hand, and I would not let you go to The
Grange in ignorance of the character of its inhabitants."

"Oh, father, do you really mean me to go?"

"We will come to that presently; let me finish what I was saying. I was
fool enough to engage myself to a beautiful girl, knowing her to be
unsuitable in every way for a poor man's wife, and I dare say I should
have persisted in my blindness to the bitter end, if I had not been
jilted by the young lady."

"My dear father!"

"My dear little Betty, please don't speak in that pitying tone; it was
the best thing that could have happened to me. I dare say I had a bad
time of it; young men are such fools; but I soon met your mother, and
she healed all wounds; but if Eleanor Sartoris treated me badly, she met
with her punishment. The man she married was a worthless sort of a
fellow; he is dead, so I need not mind saying so now. He was handsome
enough and had all the accomplishments that please women, but he could
not speak the truth. I never knew a man who could lie so freely, and in
other respects he was equally faulty, but Eleanor was infatuated, and
she wou