Bennington and Mrs. Jack dined at the old home that evening. There was plenty of gloom and forced gaiety around the board. John pretended that he was well out of a bad job; he was not a dreamer nor a socialist, not he; Utopia was not for the iron age. He told stories, joked and laughed, and smoked frequently. No one but the mother had the courage to ask if he really meant to tear down the mills. She came around the table, smoothed his hair as she had done since he was a boy, and leaned over his chair. "John?" "Well, mother mine?" "Shall you really do it?" "Do what?" "Tear it down." He did not answer at once, and she waited, trembling. "You would not have me take back my words to the men, would you, mother?" quietly. "Your father loved the place." "And do I not?" a note of strong passion in his voice. "I shall tear it down, if I live. Do not ask me anything more about it. Has Dick been over to-day?" "He telephoned that he would be over after dinner. He wants you to go to the speech-making to-night." Patty rose from her seat at the table. "Patty," said John, rather surprised at his discovery, "you are almost a woman!" "You men never see anything quickly," said Mrs. Jack. "Patty has been a beautiful woman for several months." Patty started, restrained the impulse to speak, and searched Mrs. Jack's face. But Mrs. Jack had eyes for no one but John. Her thought was far removed from her words. That telephone message rang in her ears every hour of the day. One moment she was on the verge of telling John, the next she dared not. What had that wretch found out? What could he have found out? A lie; it could be nothing more nor less than a lie; but the suspense and the waiting were killing her. Every beat of her heart, every drop of her blood belonged to this man at her side, and she would rather die than that doubt should mingle with his love. She was miserable, miserable; she dared not confide in any one; Patty was too young, for all her womanhood, to understand fully. Night after night she forced her recollection through the dim past, but she could find nothing but harmless, innocent follies. Alas, the kaleidoscope of life has so many variant angles that no two eyes see alike. What to her appeared perfectly innocent might appear evil in the neighbors' eyes; what to her was sunshine, to another might be shadow. "Think of it!" said John. "Patty will be marrying before long." Mrs. Bennington looked at Patty and sighed. To rear up children and to lose them, that was the mother's lot. To accept these aches with resignation, to pass the days in reconciling what might be with what shall be, that was the mother's portion. Yes, Patty must some day marry. "When Patty marries, mother," said John, "you shall come and live with Kate and me." "You are moving me around like a piece of useless furniture," replied Patty, with some resentment. "I doubt if I shall ever marry."