s first wife, there was a strange feeling that he no
longer belonged to her, and she was all alone; that somehow the bond had
snapped that united her with the Friends.

Philemon Henry had made a will in the lucid intervals of his fever. His
brother was appointed guardian of the child and trustee of the property.
To Bessy was left an income in no wise extravagant, so long as she
remained a widow. The remainder was to be invested for the child, who
was not to come into possession until she was twenty-one. She and her
mother were to spend half of every year on the farm, and in case of the
mother's death she was to be consigned to the sole guardianship of her
uncle. There were a few outside bequests and remembrances to faithful
clerks.

The other trustee was Philemon's business partner, who had lately
returned from Holland. If Friend Henry had lived a few years longer he
would have been a rich man, but in process of settlement his worldly
wealth shrank greatly.

Uncle James proposed that the house should be sold, and she be free from
the expense of maintaining it.

"Nay," she protested. "Surely thou hast not the heart to deprive me of
the little joy remaining to my life. The place is dear to me, for I can
see him in every room, and the garden he tended with so much care. Thou
wilt kill me by insisting, and a murder will be on thy hands."

She spent the winter and spring in the house. One day in every week she
went to cousin Wetherill's.

The elder lady, a stickler for fashion, suggested that she should wear
mourning.

"I like not dismal sables," declared Bessy. "And it is not the custom of
Friends. I shall no doubt do many things I should be restricted from
were my husband alive, but I will honor him in this."

She attended the Friends' meeting on Sunday afternoon, but the evening
assemblies that had convened at the Henrys' once a fortnight were
transferred to another house. And in summer, although she went to the
Henry farm, she made visits in town and resumed some of her old
friendships.

The next autumn there came an opportunity to sell the house and the
business, and James Henry urged it.

"Then her home will be here with us," he said to his wife. "Philemon was
anxious to have the child brought up under the godly counsel of Friends,
and she will be less likely to stray. I think she is not a whole-hearted
Friend, and her relatives are worldly people."

But when the place was sold she went at once to Madam W