248
THE WEST SHORE.
"Away from here, aunt Don't le vexwL I am
only a trouble and anxioty to him. He suggested it liim
self. It will lw better for all of us. I thought you
would 1m glad."
" Who suggested it? For heaven's sake speak plain
ly, Emily."
Miss Milward sank into a chair, and stared at her
noico, who shrank beneath her amazed looks in intense
discomfiture.
"My father. He told me to take my choice wheth
er I would atay here or go where they want me, in New
York, and abroad. And I told him I should like to go
just before he left thia morning. It will be better bo,
indeed, Aunt Azubah."
" I don't think I underatuud you, Emily," said her
aunt, coldly. " Do you moan to leave your father for
good?"
"I don't know," faltered the girl, giving the pipe a
final rub, and then laying it down. " We should see af
ter awhile how things turned out"
Miits Milward gazed fixedly at nothing for full five
minutes iu silence.
" I'oor John!" hIio cried, with an odd catching of the
breath; and without another glance at Emily, she weut
up to her own room.
Emily felt quenched and miserable. Sho went into
the garden and gathered some flowers to arrange for the
table, there being the while a miat between her and the
trees and hedges, and dew on the flowers sho held that
waa not there before they were gathered.
" Poor John!" Those two words rang in her ears all
morning; and though at dinner Mias Milward scarcely
sjxike, her red eyes and noae repeated "Poor John,"
plainly enough for Emily.
During the duration of daylight Emily could man
age to avoid much intercourse with her aunt, but when
the lamp waa lighted, it waa impossible to eHcao the
long Mr-a-Ma lefore tedtiine.
The elder lady brought out her knitting, not having
enough heart for anything that required more thought
and attention. Emily took a book and mado a pretense
of reading, her eyes following every word without her
mind, and leaving her at the end of a pago in complete
ignorance of its drift
" Khali I read to you, aunt?" she aakod, norvounly,
after an unsociable half hour.
" No, thank you," said her aunt, and another silence
ensued.
"Aunt Azubah," cried Emily, at last, shutting up
her I look iu deepair, " I wiah you would scold me, soon
er than go on like this. It is so dreadfully silent every,
where, I eau't War it I don't see why you should be
angry-you have never seemed to like having me here."
The reproach cut Miss Milward more keenly than the
girl gunned, for she only said quietly
" I am not angry, nor sorry, on my own account I
aw only thinking of your poor father."
You are rather hard on me," aaid Emily, letting a
Ur fall ou the cover of the book, and then carefully
removing it with her handkerchief. " You've always
kept me at a distance, while I have been bo lonely with
out mamma, and now you are surprised that I am glad
to get away."
" Perhaps you will say next that your father has kept
you at a diBtance, too."
" He can't miss me much. All these years he haa
douo without me."
" Yes, poor fellow," sighed Miss Milward. " As
you say, perhaps it will be for the best You have
given him nothing but anxiety ever since you entered
the house, just as your mother did twenty years ago."
" My mother! Oh, aunt! do tell me how it all hap
pened ' Why did they live apart? Why did they ever
marry? They were so different."
" Ah! Why, indeed! It was a great mistake."
" Who was my mother how did they meet?"
Emily drew her chair closer, and her aunt's auster
ity began to relax.
"Mamma would never talk about her past, but I
think there was something in it for which she was sor
ry," continued Emily.
" Do you mean to Bay she never told you about your
father'"
" No, nothing."
" Humph! She was a teacher to the children at the
minister's houso all married, now, poor things!"
" And weie they fond of each other?"
" Ho was," said Miss Milward, vaguely. " She mar
ried him for the sake of a home; and it didn't answer.
I never thought it would. Poor John I For the first
week after thoy were married he looked perfectly con
tented; then ho began to look oh, she did just as she
you have been doing, only ton times more so worried
the life out of him with her discontented, despondent
ways. She had been better off a lawyer's daughter
and when he died, had to teach for a living, and she
looked down on John and made herself wretched think
ing she had married beneath her. Beneath her! Why,
it was just the opjKwite way on, if you come to that"
"Poor mamma!" said Emily, "I dare say she was
very unhappy."
"Unhappy! and what do you think he was, then?
Do you think it can be pleasant for a man to have bis
wife always telling him that she made a mistake in mar
rying him? I don't mean telling him in words, but by
ltKiks and actions. After a time you were born, but
evon with a baby to amuse her she was no better. She
thought the place so dull, she said, though your father
brought her lxoks of all kinds, ami took her for long
drives, and did everything to amuse and please her.
Then by degrees she brooded herself ill, went away for
a change, came back bettor, and weut back to her old
state in a week. I can't toll you all the ins and oute of
it I never knew exactly how it came to the point, but
somehow they decidod between them that it could not go
on. She thought she should go melancholy mad if she
remained bore. So she went away, and took with her
the little baby girl that waa all he had, and I came to