“No, it ain’t. He’s brung home strange ways from abroad. He smokes an’ drinks beer an’ plays cards; an’ his form seldom darkens the threshold of the sanctuary. Elizabeth, I must be plain with you on this vital subject. I’m going to be as plain with you as your own conscience ought to be. I see it’s no use talking to you ’bout duty an’ the life to come. I must—there’s no sort of doubt about it—I _must_ bring the things of this world to bear on you. You know I’ve made my will: I’ve left every cent of my property to you,—twenty thousand dollars! Well, if you enter into merridge with that young man, I shall alter it. I ain’t going to have my money,—the money that my poor God-fearing aunt left me,—I ain’t going to have it fooled away on card-players an’ scorners. Now there it is, Elizabeth. There’s what my duty tells me to do, an’ what I shall do. Ponder it well an’ take your choice.” “I don’t care,” burst forth Bessie, springing to her feet. “I shall tell _him_, and if it makes no difference to _him_, it will make none to _me_.” Here a creak in the floor caught her ear, and turning quickly she discovered Henry Foster. Entering the house by a side door, and coming through a short lateral passage to the front hall, he had reached it in time to hear the close of the conversation and catch its entire drift. You could see in his face that he had heard thus much, for healthy, generous, kindly, and cheerful as the face usually was, it wore now a confused and pained expression. “I beg pardon for disturbing you,” he said. “I was pelted into the house to get out of the shower, and I took the shortest cut.” Bessie’s Oriental visage flushed to a splendid crimson, and a whiter ashiness stole into the sallow cheek of Aunt Mercy. The girl, quick and adroit as most women are in leaping out of embarrassments, rushed into a strain of light conversation. How wet Professor Foster was, and wouldn’t he go and dry himself? What a storm it had been, and what wonderful, dreadful thunder and lightning; and how glad she was that he had come, for it seemed as if he were some protection. “There’s only One who can protect us,” murmured Aunt Mercy, “either in such seasons or any others.” “His natural laws are our proper recourse,” respectfully replied Foster, who was religious too, in his scientific fashion. Bessie cringed with alarm; here was an insinuated attack on her aunt’s favorite dogma of special providences; the subject must be pitched overboard at once. “What is the news in Hampstead?” she asked. “Has the town gone to sleep, as Barham has? You ought to wake us up with something amusing.” “Jennie Brown is engaged,” said Foster. “Isn’t that satisfactory?” “O dear! how many times does that make?” laughed Bessie. “Is it a student again?” “Yes, it is a student.” “You ought to make it a college offence for students to engage themselves,” continued Bessie. “You know that they can hardly ever marry, and generally break the girls’ hearts.”