“Board!” roared John Jr. in a towering passion.  “While you thought her rich, you gave no heed to board or anything else; and since she has become poor, I do not think her appetite greatly increased.  You taunt me, too, with having no means of earning my own living.  Whose fault is it?—­tell me that.  Haven’t you always opposed my having a profession?  Didn’t you pet and baby ‘Johnny’ when a boy, keeping him always at your apron strings, and now that he’s a man, he’s not to be turned adrift.  No, madam, I shall stay, and Mabel, too, just as long as I please.”

Gaining no satisfaction from him, Mrs. Livingstone turned her battery upon poor Mabel, treating her with shameful neglect, intimating that she was in the way; that the house was full, and that she never supposed John was going to settle down at home for her to support; he was big enough to look after himself, and if he chose to marry a wife who had nothing, why let them go to work, as other folks did.

Mabel listened in perfect amazement, never dreaming what was meant, for John Jr. had carefully kept from her a knowledge of her loss, requesting his mother to do the same in such decided terms, that, hint as strongly as she pleased, she dared not tell the whole, for fear of the storm which was sure to follow.  All this was not, of course, calculated to add to Mabel’s comfort, and day by day she grew more and more unhappy, generously keeping to herself, however, the treatment which she received from Mrs. Livingstone.

“He will only dislike me the more if I complain to him of his mother,” thought she, so the secret was kept, though she could not always repress the tears which would start when she thought how wretched she was.

We believe we have said elsewhere, that if there was anything particularly annoying to John Jr., it was a sick or crying woman, and now, when he so often found Mabel indisposed or weeping, he grew more morose and fault-finding, sometimes wantonly accusing her of trying to provoke him, when, in fact, she had used every means in her power to conciliate him.  Again, conscience-smitten, he would lay her aching head upon his bosom, and tenderly bathing her throbbing temples, would soothe her into a quiet sleep, from which she always awoke refreshed, and in her heart forgiving him for all he had made her suffer.  At such times, John would resolve never again to treat her unkindly, but alas! his resolutions were too easily broken.  Had he married Nellie, a more faithful, affectionate husband there could not have been.  But now it was different.  A withering blight had fallen upon his earthly prospects, and forgetting that he alone was to blame, he unjustly laid the fault upon his innocent wife, who, as far as she was able, loved him as deeply as Nellie herself could have done.