ever in any way he manifested a spirit of rebellion.  Didn’t she marry him? and now they were married, didn’t her money support him?  And wasn’t it exceedingly amiable in her always to speak of their children as ours!  But as for the rest, ’twas my house, my servants, my carriage, and my horses.  All mine—­“Mrs. John Livingstone’s—­Miss Matilda Richards that was!”

Occasionally, however, her husband’s spirit was roused, and then, after a series of tears, sick-headaches, and then spasms, “Miss Matilda Richards that Was” was compelled to yield her face for many days wearing the look of a much-injured, heart-broken woman.  Still her influence over him was great, else she had never so effectually weakened every tie which bound him to his native home, making him ashamed of his parents and of everything pertaining to them.  When her husband first wrote, to her that his father was dead and that he had promised to take charge of his mother and ’Lena, she new into a violent rage, which was increased ten-fold when she received his second letter, wherein he announced his intention of bringing them home in spite of her.  Bursting into tears she declared “she’d leave the house before she’d have it filled up with a lot of paupers.  Who did John Nichols think he was, and who did he think she was!  Besides that, where was he going to put them? for there wasn’t a place for them that she knew of!”

“Why, mother,” said Anna who was pleased with the prospect of a new grandmother and cousin, “Why, mother, what a story.  There’s the two big chambers and bedrooms, besides the one next to Carrie’s and mine.  Oh, do put them in there.  It’ll be so nice to have grandma and cousin ’Lena so near me.”

“Anna Livingstone!” returned the indignant lady, “Never let me hear you say grandma and cousin again.”

“But they be grandma and cousin,” persisted Anna, while her mother commenced lamenting the circumstance which had made them so, wishing, as she had often done before, that she had never married John Nichols.

“I reckon you are not the only one that wishes so,” slyly whispered John Jr., who was a witness to her emotion.

Anna was naturally of an inquiring mind, and her mother’s last remark awoke within her a new and strange train of thought, causing her to wonder whose little girl she would have been, her father’s or mother’s, in case they had each married some one else!  As there was no one whose opinion Anna dared to ask, the question is undoubtedly to this day, with her, unsolved.

The next morning when Mrs. Livingstone arose, her anger of the day before was somewhat abated, and knowing from past experience that it was useless to resist her husband when once he was determined, she wisely concluded that as they were now probably on the road, it was best to try to endure, for a time, at least, what could not well be helped.  And now arose the perplexing question, “What should she do with them? where should she put them that they would be the most out of the way? for she could never suffer them to be round when she had company.”  The chamber of which Anna had spoken was out of the question, for it was too nice, and besides that, it was reserved for the children of her New Orleans friends, who nearly every summer came up to visit her.