"Complaining over some bills in his setting-room; and he actually told me a while ago, when I went in, that he had been a fool to give Maria so much money for Wyndham to throw away. Poor Maria! I'm sure she has had a hard enough time without being abused for something she couldn't help. But it really is a passion with him, thar's no use denying it. He spends his whole time adding up the cost of what we eat." Then, as the supper-bell rang in the hall, she finished hurriedly, and assuming a cheerful manner, took her place behind the silver service. Fletcher entered with a heavy step, his eyes lowering beneath his bushy eyebrows. The weight of his years appeared to have fallen upon him in a night, and he was no longer the hale, ruddy man of middle age, with his breezy speeches and his occasional touches of coarse humour. The untidiness of his clothes was still marked-his coat, his cravat, his finger nails, all showed the old lack of neatness. "Won't you say grace, Brother Bill?" asked Miss Saidie, as he paused abstractedly beside his chair. Bending his head, he mumbled a few hurried words, and then cast a suspicious glance over the long table. "I told you to use the butter with onions in it," he said, helping himself and tasting a little on the end of his knife. "This brings forty cents a pound in market, and I'll not have the waste." "Oh, Brother Bill, the other is so bad," gasped Miss Saidie nervously. "It's good enough for you and me, I reckon. We wan't brought up on any better, and what's good enough for us is good enough for my grandson." Then he turned squarely upon Will. "So you're back, eh? Whar did you go?" he demanded Will tried to meet his eyes, failed, and stared gloomily at the white-and-red border of the tablecloth. "I went out for a breath of air," he answered in a muffled voice. "It's been stifling all day." "You've got to get used to it, I reckon," returned the old man with a brutal laugh. "I'll have no idlers and no fancy men about me." An ugly smile distorted his coarse features, and, laying down his knife and fork, he sat watching his grandson with his small, bloodshot eyes. CHAPTER VII. The Toss of a Coin A fortnight passed before Will came to Christopher's again, and then he stole over one evening in the shadow of the twilight. Things were no better, he said; they were even worse than usual; the work in the tobacco field was simply what he couldn't stand, and his grandfather was growing more intolerable every day. Besides this, the very dullness of the life was fast driving him to distraction. He had smuggled a bottle of whisky from the town, and last night, after a hot quarrel with the old man, he had succeeded in drugging himself to sleep. "My nerves have gone all to pieces," he finished irritably, "and it's nothing on earth but this everlasting bickering that has done it. It's more than flesh and blood can be expected to put up with."