“Anyhow, whatever it was, Mrs. Layton, I’m obliged to you for telling me--more obliged than I can express,” he said, with unaffected earnestness--“and I will do as she wants me to. I will not turn Rob out.” “I’m glad of that,” said his visitor, whose instincts were always kind. “It could hardly do him any good.” The springs of the banker’s emotions had been touched, and for a moment he looked like a big boy about to cry like a little boy. That’s what he saw he must do, or pour himself out in uninvited and prodigal confidence, and that’s what he did. Thus it was that the banker’s skeletons held high carnival that afternoon in their owner’s business office. The reminder of the wife of his youth, the companion of his poverty, pressed the closet door unceremoniously open. The unhappy owner of the unique outfit took a full breath and unreservedly told how miserable he was, and that the only happiness he ever had was during the life of his first wife, “When there was scarce bread to eat And the wolf was at the door.” Now, he had money, and with it a wife who wore purple and fine linen, and loved nobody but herself. He spoke of his loneliness, and told what a poor, mean, paltry sham his life was, and how at times he had wondered if his dead wife could see and understand. He kept on till the closet of skeletons had been pretty well swept and aired, and they had stretched their legs in a fine dance after long suppression--kept on until the Butterfly held him and his wretchedness, so to speak, in the hollow of her hand. When she went forth it was with a sure conviction that he would say nothing about her clairvoyant experiences. He would have enough repenting to do about the break-out of the skeletons to keep him busy. CHAPTER X. “YE SHALL NOT UNDERSTAND.” Whatever happens to anybody it will be turned to beautiful results, And nothing can happen more beautiful than death. --_Walt Whitman._ Two years had passed since Colonel Layton died. Renewed health and beauty had come to the Butterfly, who still contentedly earned and ate her own bread. Self-dependence has many rewards for its faithful disciples, not least among them being the conscious dignity that belongs to usefulness, and expresses itself in the greater ease and calmer assurance of bearing. Being a factor instead of a cipher gives a woman new value in her own eyes, as well as in the eyes of others.