As to Jay, he was passionate and stubborn, and Missy's heart was broken by a fib he had just told her. The father came home at night, and always, she believed, asked for the children, and when they could be found, and made superficially respectable, they were brought to the table for a little while. But Jay fell asleep sometimes, with his head on the table-cloth, overcome with the long day's play. And Gabby, after she had got a little money out of his pocket, and a little dessert off his plate, preferred the society of the servants, and went away to them. In the morning, they rarely breakfasted with him. They were some times not up, and never dressed in time for that early meal. They took their meals before or after the servants, as those dignitaries found most convenient. Once, poor Jay wandered in hungry and cross at nine o'clock, and told Missy he had had nothing to eat, and that Gabby was dancing for the servants in the kitchen while they ate their breakfast. They made such a noise, Jay said, they made his head ache, and he acknowledged to kicking one of the women who wouldn't go and get him his breakfast, and being put out from the festive scene in disgrace. He ate muffins and omelette on Missy's lap, that morning, but it did not probably make the other mornings any better. No one could advise anything. Mrs. Varian could see no way out of it, and painful as it was, could suggest nothing but patience. It was manifestly not their business to offer any interference. St. John, his sister appealed to in vain. Except the interview on the evening of the wife's death, and the few moments' preceding the funeral services, there had been no communication between them. St. John had called, but Mr. Andrews had been away from the house at the moment. On Sundays, he did not go to church--on week days, he was in the city. St. John told his sister, very truly, it would be impertinence to force himself upon a person so nearly a stranger, and she quite agreed with him. But Jay! "Why isn't he my child, and why can't I snatch him up and run away with him," she cried, tossing a handful of pebbles into the water and wrapping her cloak closer around her as she walked away from the beach-gate. She could not understand eloping with a man, but with her tawny-haired mannikin she could have consented to fly, she felt.