After Juliet had left us for her new home, in an adjoining town, there ensued at our house a season of lonely quiet, in which we scarcely knew whether to laugh or to cry. There is always something sad in the giving up of a daughter to the care of another, and so my parents found it, particularly my father, who, broken in spirit and feeble in health, was unusually cast down. He could hardly suffer me to leave his sight for a moment, and still he seemed to take special pleasure in finding fault with whatever I did. Nothing pleased him, and gradually there returned upon me with its full force the olden fancy of my childhood, that _I_ was not loved like the rest. It was a most bitter thought, wringing my heart with a keener anguish than it had ever done before; and once, the very day before the one set for my return to Rockland, my pent up feelings burst forth, and in angry tones I told him “it was useless for me to try to please him—he didn’t love me and never had—and I was glad that the morrow would find me away, where he would no longer be troubled with my presence, which was evidently so disagreeable to him.” He made me no answer, but a fearful look of sorrow, which will haunt me to my dying day, passed over his thin, white face, and his hand, which was hard and brown with toil for _me_, was raised beseechingly as if to stay the angry torrent. Oh, how I repented of my harshness then, but I did not tell him so; I would wait till morning, and then, ere I left, I would seek the forgiveness, without which I well knew I should be wretched, for something told me that never in this world should we meet again. Next morning when I awoke, the sun was shining brightly in at my window, and hurrying on my clothes, I descended to the dining-room. In silence we gathered around the breakfast table, and then I saw that my father was absent. “Where was he?” I asked, and was told that having business in Southbridge, a town several miles distant, he had left early, telling my mother to bid me good-bye for him. All my good resolutions were forgotten, and again I said hastily, “I think he might at least have bidden me good-bye himself, and you may tell him so.” “Hush, Rose, hush,” said my mother. “Your father isn’t the man he was before we left our old home. He is broken down, and it may be you have seen him for the last time.” “It is hardly probable,” I answered, and with a swelling heart I bade my mother adieu; but I left no message which would tell my father how much I repented of my rashness. Upon his grave the tall grass is growing—howling storms have swept across it—wintry snows have been piled upon it—the summer’s mellow sunlight has fallen around it—flowers have blossomed and faded—changes have come to us all—and still I have never ceased to regret that last interview with my father, or to mourn over my distrust of his love for me. CHAPTER XVIII. THE DEATH OF THE DRUNKARD.