ter that day, with a mighty effort, she summoned up courage enough
to go down to her father. She was determined to send the message to
mamma; but when it came to the point, she was again unable to utter a
word on the subject. Her mother had gone to stay with her relations in
England. Beth found her father in the dining-room, and several other
people were present. He was standing by the sideboard, mixing
whisky-and-water, so, instead of sending her love to mamma, Beth
exclaimed, confidently and pleasantly, "If you drink whisky, you'll be
drunk again."

A smart slap rewarded this sally. Beth turned pale and recoiled. It
was her first taste of human injustice. To drink and to be drunk was
to her merely the natural sequence of cause and effect, and she could
not conceive why she should be slapped and turned out of the room so
promptly for uttering such a simple truth.

Beth was present at many discussions between her father and mother,
and took much interest in them, all the more perhaps, because most of
what was said was a mystery to her. She wondered why any mention of
the "moon-faced Bessie" disturbed her mother's countenance. Jane
Nettles, too--when her mother was out, her father used to come and
talk to Jane, and they laughed a good deal. He admired Jane's white
teeth, and the children used to make Jane show them her teeth after
that.

"Papa says Jane's got nice white teeth," Beth said to her mother one
day, and she never forgot the glance which Mrs. Caldwell threw at her
husband. His eyes fell before it.

"What! even the servants, Henry!" Mrs. Caldwell exclaimed, and then
she left the room. Beth learned what it all meant in after years, the
career of one of her brothers furnishing the clue. Like father, like
son.

It was after this that Mrs. Caldwell went to visit her relations in
England, accompanied by two of the children. It was in the summer, and
Jane took Beth to the Castle Hill that morning to see the steamer,
with her mother on board, go by. The sea was iridescent, like molten
silver, the sky was high and cloudless, and where sea and sky met and
mingled on the horizon it was impossible to determine. Numbers of
steamers passed far out. They looked quite small, and Beth did not
think there was room in any of them for her mother and brother and
sister. They did not, therefore, interest her much, nor did the
policeman who came and talked to Jane. But the Castle Hill, and the
little winding path up which she