"Perhaps if Lillie had been here I never should have taken such a pledge; but as I have, there's no help for it." Then he thought of what Lillie had suggested about it's looking niggardly in hospitality, and was angry with himself for feeling uncomfortable.

"What do I care what Dick Follingsbee thinks ?" said he to himself: "a man that I despise; a cheat, and a swindler,--a man of no principle.

Lillie doesn't know the sacrifice it is to me to have such people in my house at all.

Hang it all! I wish Lillie was a little more like the women I've been used to,--like Grace and Rose and my mother.

But, poor thing, I oughtn't to blame her, after all, for her unfortunate bringing up.