any other arrangement except that already agreed upon, and urged
that he should return to town that very day, his wife adding that
just as soon as he had secured rooms within their means she would
join him and prepare them for the family.

"Oh, Nan," he again said dejectedly, "it's a cruel fate which
compels me to take you to a tenement-house in August."

"It would be far more cruel to leave me here," his wife answered
earnestly. "I could be happy anywhere if you were your old natural
self once more. Millie and I can both see that struggling alone
and brooding by yourself over your troubles is not good for you,"
and her gentle but determined purpose carried the day.

Mr. Jocelyn was then directed to a somewhat distant field, where
he found Roger, who readily agreed to take him to the steamboat
landing in the afternoon. Lifting his eyes from his work a few
moments afterward, the young man saw that his visitor, instead of
returning to the house, had sat down under a clump of trees and
had buried his face in his hands.

"There's a screw loose about that man," he muttered. "He's too uneven.
Yesterday at dinner he was the most perfect gentleman ever I saw;
in the afternoon he had a fit of pompous hilarity and condescension;
then came abstraction, as if his mind had stepped out for a time;
and now, after twelve hours of sleep, instead of feeling like
a lark, he looks as though he might attend his own funeral before
night, and walks as if his feet were lead. He mopes there under
the trees when he has but a few more hours with his family. If I
had such a wife and such a daughter as he has, I'd cut a swath for