the world, and protect Belle; and during the years while he is making his way upward, you will learn to love him.  You will become interested in his studies, hopes, and prospects.  You will encourage, and at the same time prevent undue application, for no man knows how to take care of himself.  He can be our deliverer, and you his good angel.  Your relations and long engagement may not be exactly conventional; but he is not conventional, neither is your need nor our sad fortunes.  Since God has put within our reach this great alleviation of our sorrow, ought we to refuse it?”

“Set your mind at rest, mamma; you have made duty plain.  I will do my best, and it now all rests with Roger.”

“Millie, you are a dear, good child,” said the mother brokenly, and with smiles shining like light through her tears; and after a close embrace she went out, closing the door that the weary girl might rest at last.

When alone, Mildred turned her face to the wall and breathed, like the lowest and saddest note of a wind-touched harp, “Vinton, Vinton Arnold, farewell forever.  I must look for you no more—­I must think of you no more.  Oh, perverse heart, be still!”

But a decision had been reached, and her perplexed mind had at last found the rest of a fixed resolve.  Then nature asserted her right, and she slept long and heavily.  When she awoke, the lamp was lighted in the one living-room, from which came the sounds of an unsteady step and a thick, rough voice.  She trembled, for she knew that her father had come home again intoxicated—­an event that was becoming terribly frequent of late.  She felt too weak and nerveless to go out and look upon their living disgrace, and lay still with long, sighing breaths.  “Even Mr. Atwood will turn from us in disgust, when he realizes papa’s degradation,” she thought.  “Alas! can it be right to cloud his bright young life with such a shameful stain!  Oh, if it were not selfish, I could wish to die and escape from it all.”

At last the heavy, shuffling step passed into the adjoining bedroom, and soon the wretched man was in stupor.  As Mildred came out she saw Belle, who had returned from her work, looking toward the room in which her father slept, with a lowering, reckless expression that made her sister shudder.

Mildred tried to banish evil thoughts by putting her arm around the young girl’s neck and kissing her between the eyes.  “Don’t look so, Belle,” she whispered.

“Where is that to end?” Belle asked, in a strange, harsh voice, pointing toward the room.  “Millie, I can’t stand this life much longer.”

“Oh, Belle, don’t forget there is a heaven beyond this life.”

“It’s too far beyond.  Look here, Millie; since God don’t answer mamma’s prayers, I haven’t much faith in anything.  See what undeserved trouble came upon you too.  If it hadn’t been for Roger you would have been in prison to-night, and we’d have been alone here with a drunken father.  How can one have faith and try to be good when such things happen?”