And he roared again until the water oozed from his eyes.

Hope Wayne scarcely looked at him.  She rose to go; but it seemed to her pitiful to leave Fanny Newt in such utter desolation of soul and body, in which she seemed to her to be gradually sinking into idiocy.  She went to Fanny and took her hand.  Fanny listlessly rose, and when Hope had done shaking hands Fanny crossed them before her inanely, but in an unconsciously appealing attitude, which Hope saw and felt.  Alfred still sprawled in his chair; laughing at intervals; and Hope left the room, followed by Fanny, who shuffled after her, her slippers, evidently down at the heel, pattering on the worn oil-cloth in the entry as she shambled toward the front door.  Hope opened it.  The morning was pleasant, though cool, and the air refreshing after the odor of mingled grease and stale tobacco-smoke which filled the house.

As they passed out, Fanny quietly sat down upon the step, leaned her chin upon one hand, and looked up and down the street, which, it seemed to Hope, offered a prospect that would hardly enliven her mind.  There was something more touching to Hope in this dull apathy than in the most positive grief.

“Fanny Newt!” she said to her, suddenly.

Fanny lifted her lazy eyes.

“If I can do nothing for your brother, can I do nothing for you?  You will rust out, Fanny, if you don’t take care.”

Fanny smiled languidly.

“What if I do?” she answered.

Thereupon Hope sat down by her, and told her just what she meant, and what she hoped, and what she would do if she would let her.  And the eager young woman drew such pleasant pictures of what was yet possible to Fanny, although she was the wife of Alfred Dinks, that, as if the long-accumulating dust and ashes were blown away from her soul, and it began to kindle again in a friendly breath, Fanny felt herself moved and interested.  She smiled, looked grave, and finally laid her head upon Hope’s shoulder and cried good, honest tears of utter weariness and regret.

“And now,” said Hope, “will you help me about Abel?”

“I really don’t see that you can do any thing,” said Fanny, “nor any body else.  Perhaps he’ll get a new start in Congress, though I don’t know any thing about it.”

Hope Wayne shook her head thoughtfully.

“No,” she said, “I see no way.  I can only be ready to befriend him if the chance offers.”

They said no more of him then, but Hope persuaded Fanny to come to Lawrence Newt’s Christmas dinner, to which they had all been bidden.  “And I will make him understand about it,” she said, as she went down the steps.

Mrs. Dinks sat upon the door-step for some time.  There was nobody to see her whom she knew, and if there had been she would not have cared.  She did not know how long she had been sitting there, for she was thinking of other things, but she was roused by hearing her husband’s voice: