Husband, it is not so hard to give up this one." He said, in a whisper, low almost as a lover's, "I could give up anything in the world but them and thee." So, with a brief information to me at supper-time--"Uncle Phineas, did you hear?
we cannot go to Longfield,"-- the renunciation was made, and the subject ended.

For this year, at least, our Arcadian dream was over.
But John's troubled looks did not pass away.

It seemed as if this night his long toil had come to that crisis when the strongest man breaks down--or trembles within a hair's breadth of breaking down; conscious too, horribly conscious, that if so, himself will be the least part of the universal ruin.

His face was haggard, his movements irritable and restless; he started nervously at every sound.

Sometimes even a hasty word, an uneasiness about trifles, showed how strong was the effort he made at self-control.