It had never occurred to Richard Stanfield that his father could be seriously angry with him for anything he could do. He had been allowed his own way, and plenty of money to carry out that way, ever since he could remember, and if his father had ever been seriously displeased, a little coaxing penitence from his graceful, handsome son had been all that was needful to reconcile the indulgent father. If Richard had taken his wife directly home, things might have turned out very differently, for Calista was a sweet, gracious creature, though timid and somewhat reserved. Richard, however, was well pleased to stay where he was, and he wrote to his father and waited for an answer, amusing himself meanwhile, as he had done all his life, with whatever came to hand. There was a power near the throne on which Richard had not calculated, and which was in no wise friendly to him. Miss Priscilla Stanfield, the General's daughter by his first wife, had at first been fond of the pretty boy baby, and after his mother died, she had befriended him in her fashion, till he began to interfere with the exercise of her ruling passion. Richard loved to spend money—Miss Priscilla loved to save it; and between the two there was a perpetual contest, sometimes open, sometimes covert, but always more or less active. When Richard was at home, his influence was usually uppermost with the General, who was not very strong-minded at any time; but when Richard was away, his father was wholly in the hands of Priscilla, who had her own ends to serve. Priscilla persuaded her father that Richard had disgraced his family by marrying, clandestinely, an obscure girl without family, education, or money. The consequence was that the General wrote a very harsh letter to his son, forbidding him to bring home the young woman with whom he had so disgracefully connected himself. If he chose to return without her, he was at liberty to do so. The young woman could remain with her friends, and a suitable allowance should be made her. If Richard chose to comply with these terms, well and, good; if not, Mr. Settson, the old lawyer in Cohansey, was authorized to pay to his order the sum of three hundred dollars a year, which was all that he must expect from his father. "It is Priscilla's doing!" said Richard to his wife. "I see her hand all through it. My father must be in his dotage. Does he take me for a fool, or a villain?" "Oh, Richard, we have done very wrong!" said poor Calista. "I never guessed your father could take it in that way. I thought you wrote to him. You said you would." "Well, I meant to, but the time went on, and on the whole I thought it as well to wait. I am sure I never guessed he would take it in such an absurd way any more than yourself. And three hundred a year! It is just nothing."