“I guess he can afford to support his only daughter at home a little while after she has just got out of school,” Fanny had returned indignantly, with a keen pain at her heart.

Fanny mentioned this conversation to Andrew that night after Ellen had gone to bed.

“What do you think—­Ellen was asking me this afternoon what she had better do!” said she.

“What she had better do?” repeated Andrew, vaguely.  He looked shrinkingly at Fanny, who seemed to him to have an accusing air, as if in some way he were to blame for something.  And, indeed, there were times when Fanny in those days did blame Andrew, but there was some excuse for her.  She blamed him when her own back was filling her very soul with the weariness of its ache as she bent over the seams of those grinding wrappers, and when her heart was sore over doubt of Ellen’s future.  At those times she acknowledged to herself that it seemed to her that Andrew somehow might have gotten on better.  She did not know how, but somehow.  He had not had an expensive family.  “Why had he not succeeded?” she asked herself.  So there was in her tone an unconscious recrimination when she answered his question about Ellen.

“Yes—­what she had better go to work at,” said Fanny, dryly, her black eyes cold on her husband’s face.

Andrew turned so white that he frightened her.  “Go to work!” said he.  Then all at once he gave an exceedingly loud and bitter groan.  It betrayed all his pride in and ambition for his daughter and his disgust and disappointment over himself.  “Oh! my God, has it come to this,” he groaned, “that I cannot support my one child!”

Fanny laid down her work and looked at him.  “Now, Andrew,” said she, “there’s no use in your taking it after such a fashion as this.  I told Ellen that it was all nonsense—­that she could stay at home and rest this summer.”

“I guess, if she can’t—­” said Andrew.  He dropped his gray head into his hands, and began to sob dryly.  Fanny, after staring at him a moment, tossed her work onto the floor, went over to him, and drew his head to her shoulder.

“There, old man,” said she, “ain’t you ashamed of yourself?  I told her there was no need for her to worry at present.  Don’t do so, Andrew; you’ve done the best you could, and I know it, if I stop to think, though I do seem sort of impatient sometimes.  You’ve always worked hard and done your best.  It ain’t your fault.”

“I don’t know whether it is or not,” said Andrew, in a high, querulous voice like a woman’s.  “It seems as if it must be somebody’s fault.  If it ain’t my fault, whose is it?  You can’t blame the Almighty.”

“Maybe it ain’t anybody’s fault.”

“It must be.  All that goes wrong is somebody’s fault.  It can’t be that it just happens—­that would be worse than the other.  It is better to have a God that is cruel than one that don’t care, and it is better to be to blame yourself, and have it your fault, than His.  Somehow, I have been to blame, Fanny.  I must have.  It would have been enough sight better for you, Fanny, if you’d married another man.”