“Let her stay at home, then,” was John Jr.’s answer, as he led Nellie toward the supper-room, which the company were just then entering.

About an hour after supper the guests began to leave, Mrs. Livingstone being the first to propose going.  As she was ascending the stairs, John Jr. observed that Mabel was with her, and turning to ’Lena, who now leaned on his arm, he said, “There goes the future Mrs. John Jr.—­so mother thinks!”

“Where?” asked ’Lena, looking around.

“Why, there,” continued John, pointing toward Mabel.  “Haven’t you noticed with what parental solicitude mother watches over her?”

“I saw them together,” answered ’Lena, “and I thought it very kind in my aunt, for no one else seemed to notice her, and I felt sorry for her.  She is going home with us, I believe.”,

“Going home with us!” repeated John Jr.  “In the name of the people, what is she going home with us for?”

“Why,” returned ’Lena, “your mother thinks the country air will do her good.”

“Un-doubtedly,” said John, with a sneer.  “Mother’s motives are usually very disinterested.  I wonder she don’t propose to the old captain to take up his quarters with us, so she can nurse him!”

With this state of feeling, it was hardly natural that John Jr. should be very polite toward Mabel, and when his mother asked him to help her into the carriage, he complied so ungraciously, that Mabel observed it, and looked wonderingly at her patroness for an explanation.

“Only one of his freaks, love—­he’ll get over it,” said Mrs. Livingstone, while poor Mabel, sinking back amoung the cushions, wept silently, thinking that everybody hated her.

When ’Lena came down to bid her host and hostess good-night, the former retained her hand, while he expressed his sorrow at her leaving so soon.  “I meant to have seen more of you,” said he, “but you must visit us often—­will you not?”

Neither the action nor the words escaped Mrs. Graham’s observation, and the lecture which she that night read her offending spouse, had the effect to keep him awake until the morning was growing gray in the east.  Then, when he was asleep, he so far forgot himself and the wide-open ears beside him as actually to breathe the name of ’Lena in his dreams!

Mrs. Graham needed no farther confirmation of her suspicions, and at the breakfast-table next morning, she gave her son a lengthened account of her husband’s great sin in dreaming of a young girl, and that girl ’Lena Rivers.  Durward laughed heartily and then, either to tease his mother, or to make his father’s guilt less heinous in her eyes, he replied, “It is a little singular that our minds should run in the same channel, for, I, too, dreamed of ’Lena Rivers!”

Poor Mrs. Graham.  A double task was now imposed upon her—­that of watching both husband and son; but she was accustomed to it, for her life, since her second marriage, had been one continued series of watching for evil where there was none.  And now, with a growing hatred toward ’Lena, she determined to increase her vigilance, feeling sure she should discover something if she only continued faithful to the end.