“Mr. Wayt was a confirmed opium eater and drinker, twelve years ago,” she resumed in a cold monotone. “He would drink intoxicating liquors, too, when narcotics were not to be had. I believe the appetite for the two is a common symptom of the habit. His wife shielded him, then, as she does now, and so successfully that he kept a church in Cincinnati for four years. Hester was a beautiful, active child, eight years old, and a great pet with her father. He does not care for children, as a rule, but she was pretty and clever and amused him. One day she begged her mother to let her take ‘dear papa’s’ lunch up to him. It was always ‘dear papa’ with her. He had a way of locking himself in his study from morning until night Saturday. Even his wife did not suspect that he wrote his Sunday sermon with a glass of laudanum and brandy at his side. He was busy upon a set of popular discourses on ‘Crying Sins of the Day.’ They drew immense crowds.” A sarcastic gleam passed over her face, and for the first time the listener saw a likeness to the witty and wise cripple. “Hester knocked again and again without getting answered. Then her father called out that he was busy and did not want any lunch. She was always willful, and he had indulged her unreasonably. So she declared that she would not go away until he opened the door and took the tray—not if she had to stand there and knock all day. He tore open the door in a fury, threw the tray and the lunch downstairs, and flung the child after it. The drugged drink had made him crazy.” March shuddered. “And that was the cause——” “It left her what you see, now. The effect upon her character and feelings was, if possible, more deplorable. From that hour she has never spoken to her father at all, or of him as ‘papa.’ It is always ‘he’ and ‘him’ to the family, ‘Mr. Wayt’ to strangers. It seems horribly unnatural, but she loathes and despises him. While she lay crushed and suffering for the months that passed before she left her bed, she would go into convulsions at sight of him. Her mother begged her, on her knees, to ‘forgive poor papa, who had a delirious headache when he pushed her away from the door.’ Hester refused passionately. She is no more forgiving now. Yet she was so proud and shrewd, even then, that she never betrayed to the doctors how she was hurt. She let everybody believe that it was an accident. I had been her nurse for six months before she told me the fearful story.