Business that day had no interest for him, and in a listless, absent way he sat watching the passers-by and glancing at his door as if he expected the first assault to be made there. Then, as the day wore on, and he felt sure that what he so much dreaded had really come to pass, that the baggage expected last night had certainly arrived by this time and spread itself over his house, he could endure the suspense no longer, and startled Mark with the announcement that he was going home, and should not return again that day. “Going home, when Leavit is to call at three!” Mark said, in much surprise, and feeling that it would be a relief to unburden himself to some one, the story came out that Wilford had seen Aunt Betsy at the opera, and expected to find her at Madison Square. “I wish I had answered her letter about that confounded sheep-pasture,” he said, “for I would rather give a thousand dollars—yes, ten thousand—than have her with us to-day. I did _not_ marry my wife’s relations,” he continued, excitedly, adding, as Mark looked quickly up, “Of course I don’t mean Helen. Neither do I mean that doctor, for he is a gentleman. But this Barlow woman—oh! Mark, I am all of a dripping sweat just to think of it.” He did not say what he intended doing, but with Mark Ray’s ringing laugh in his ears, passed into the street, and hailing a stage was driven towards home, just as a down town stage deposited on the walk in front of his office “that Barlow woman” and Mattie Tubbs! CHAPTER XXVI. AUNT BETSY CONSULTS A LAWYER. Aunt Betsy did not rest well after her return from the opera. Novelty and excitement always kept her awake, and her mind was not wholly at ease with regard to what she had done. Not that she really felt she had committed a sin, except so far as the example might be bad, but she feared the result, should it ever reach the Orthodox church at Silverton. “There’s no telling what Deacon Bannister would do—send a _subpœna_ after me, for what I know,” she thought, as she laid her tired head upon her pillow and went off into a weary state, half way between sleep and wakefulness, in which operas, play-actors, Katy in full dress, Helen and Mark Ray, choruses, music by the orchestra, to which she had been guilty of beating her foot, Deacon Bannister, and the whole offended brotherhood, with constable and subpœnas, were pretty equally blended together. But with the daylight her fears subsided, and at the breakfast table she was hardly less enthusiastic over the opera than Mattie herself, averring, however, that “once would do her, and she had no wish to go again.” The sight of Katy had awakened all the olden intense love she had felt for her darling, and she could not wait much longer without seeing her.