descended the stairs, and walked out of the house.

He did not return that evening. He had been seen on the road leading
to the house of a relative who was in rather poor circumstances. Henry
felt rather annoyed at his fathers absence; he had no depth in his
affection, but he had been accustomed to see him and hear his voice
every day, and therefore he missed him, but consoled himself with
the thought that they would soon meet again, as it never entered his
imagination that his father had quitted the house for a lengthened
period. Mrs. Lawson felicitated herself on the event, and hoped that
the old man would remain for some time with his relative.

The following day a letter was handed to Henry; it was from his
father, and was as follows:

"TO MY SON HENRY--I have at last come to the resolution of quitting
your house, which I can no longer call mine, in even the least degree.
For weeks--for months--ever since you married--ever since your wife
took upon herself what she calls the management of your house and
purse, I have felt bound down under the weight of an oppressive
bondage. I could not go and take a pound or a shilling from our common
stock, as I used to do before you married, when you and I lived in one
mind, and when I believed that the very spirit of your departed, your
angel mother, dwelt in you, as you had, and have still, her very face
and form. No, no, we had no common stock when you married. She put me
on an allowance--ay, an allowance. You lived, and saw me receiving
an allowance; you whom I loved with an idolatry which God has now
punished; you to whom I freely gave up my business--my money-making
business. I gave it you--I gave all to you--I would have given my
very life and soul to you, because I thought that with your mother's