“If there is any hardship in the case,” replied Mr. Green, calmly, “you are at fault, and not me, Mr. Bacon.”

“Why do you say that?” inquired the old man.

“For the necessity which drove your child to this act of self-sacrifice, you are responsible.”

“Oh sir! is this a time to wound me with words like these?  Why do you turn a seeming act of kindness into the sharpest cruelty?”

“I speak to you but the words of truth and soberness, Mr. Bacon.  These, no man should shrink from hearing.  Seven years ago, your farm was the most productive in the neighborhood, and you in easy circumstances.  What has produced the sad change now visible to all eyes?  What has taken from you the ability to manage your affairs as prosperously as before?  What has made it necessary for your child to leave her father’s sheltering roof and bury herself for two long years in a factory, in order to save you from total ruin?  Go home, Mr. Bacon, and answer these questions to your own heart, and may the pain you now suffer lead you to act more wisely in the future.”

“My daughter shall not go!” exclaimed the old man, passionately.

“I hold her written pledge to repair to Lowell at the expiration of three weeks, and to repay the loan I made her in two years.  Will you compel her to violate her contract?”

“I will execute another mortgage on my farm and pay you back the loan.”

“Act like a wise man,” said Mr. Green.  “Let your daughter carry out her noble purpose, and thus relieve you from embarrassment.”

“No, no, Mr. Green!  I cannot think of this.  Oh, sir! pity me!  Do not force my child away!  Do not lay so heavy a burden on one so young.  Think of her as your own daughter, and do to me as you would yourself wish to be done by.”

But Mr. Green was deaf to all these appeals.  He was a man of great firmness of purpose, and not easily turned to the right nor to the left.

During the next three weeks, Mr. Bacon tried every expedient in his power, short of a total sacrifice of his little property, to raise the money, but in vain.  Except for a circumstance new in his life, he would, in his desperation, have accepted Dyer’s offer of six hundred dollars for his farm, and thus prevented Mary’s departure for Lowell—­that circumstance was his perfect sobriety.  Not since the day when Mr. Green charged upon him the responsibility of his child’s banishment from her father’s house, had he tasted a drop of strong drink.  His mind was therefore clear, and he was restrained by reason from acts of rashness, by which his condition would be rendered far worse than it was already.