downcast and fixed on an abyss which no soul has ever fathomed.

"Great God!" he murmured, "I must escape; I shall--I WILL escape;"
but while Mildred stepped into a florist's shop to purchase a
blooming plant for Mrs. Wheaton, he furtively took from his pocket
a small paper of white-looking powder--just the amount which
experience had taught him he could take and not betray himself.
As a result she was delighted to find him genial and wakeful until
they parted rather late in the old mansion wherein, she jestingly
said, she proposed to build their nest, like a barn-swallow, the
following day.

After a brief consultation with Mrs. Wheaton the next morning
Mildred told her father to send for the rest of the family at once,
and that she would be ready for them. The household goods arrived
promptly from their place of storage, and she was positively happy
while transforming the bare rooms into a home that every hour grew
more inviting. They had retained, when giving up their house in the
spring, more furniture than was sufficient for the limited space
they would now occupy, and Mildred had enough material and taste to
banish the impression of poverty almost wholly from their two rooms.
She had the good sense, also, to make the question of appearances
always secondary to that of comfort, and rigorously excluded what
was bulky and unnecessary. "I don't like crowded rooms," she
said, "and mamma must have just as little to care for and tax her
strength as possible." One side of the large room was partitioned
off as a sleeping apartment for her father, mother, and the two
children, and was made private by curtains of dark, inexpensive
material. The remainder and larger part facing the east was to be
kitchen, dining and living room. Mrs. Wheaton did the heavy work,