In this perspective Ditmar appeared so ruthless, his purpose to use her and fling her away so palpable, that she despised herself for having hesitated.  A longing for retaliation consumed her; she wished to hurt him before she left.  At such times, however, unforeseen events invariably intruded to complicate her feelings and alter her plans.  One evening at supper, for instance, when she seemed at last to have achieved the comparative peace of mind that follows a decision after struggle, she gradually became aware of an outburst from Hannah concerning the stove, the condition of which for many months had been a menace to the welfare of the family.  Edward, it appeared, had remarked mildly on the absence of beans.

“Beans!” Hannah cried.  “You’re lucky to have any supper at all.  I just wish I could get you to take a look at that oven—­there’s a hole you can put your hand through, if you’ve a mind to.  I’ve done my best, I’ve made out to patch it from time to time, and to-day I had Mr. Tiernan in.  He says it’s a miracle I’ve been able to bake anything.  A new one’ll cost thirty dollars, and I don’t know where the money’s coming from to buy it.  And the fire-box is most worn through.”

“Well, mother, we’ll see what we can do,” said Edward.

“You’re always seeing what you can do, but I notice you never do anything,” retorted Hannah; and Edward had the wisdom not to reply.  Beside his place lay a lengthy, close-written letter, and from time to time, as he ate his canned pears, his hand turned over one of its many sheets.

“It’s from Eben Wheeler, says he’s been considerably troubled with asthma,” he observed presently.  “His mother was a Bumpus, a daughter of Caleb-descended from Robert, who went from Dolton to Tewksbury in 1816, and fought in the war of 1812.  I’ve told you about him.  This Caleb was born in ’53, and he’s living now with his daughter’s family in Detroit....  Son-in-law’s named Nott, doing well with a construction company.  Now I never could find out before what became of Robert’s descendants.  He married Sarah Styles” (reading painfully) “`and they had issue, John, Robert, Anne, Susan, Eliphalet.  John went to Middlebury, Vermont, and married ’”

Hannah, gathering up the plates, clattered them together noisily.

“A lot of good it does us to have all that information about Eben Wheeler’s asthma!” she complained.  “It’ll buy us a new stove, I guess.  Him and his old Bumpus papers!  If the house burned down over our heads that’s all he’d think of.”

As she passed to and fro from the dining-room to the kitchen Hannah’s lamentations continued, grew more and more querulous.  Accustomed as Janet was to these frequent arraignments of her father’s inefficiency, it was gradually borne in upon her now—­despite a preoccupation with her own fate—­that the affair thus plaintively voiced by her mother was in effect a family crisis of the first magnitude.  She was stirred anew to anger and revolt against a