"Nancy, if you don't stop rocking your body in that inane way, and shaking your hand and your handkerchief, and saying those imbecile things, I shall go mad. I suppose this is the kind of sympathy a man gets from a woman in his misfortunes!"

May Newt looked shocked and indignant. "Mother, I am sorry for poor Fanny," said she.

She said it quietly and tenderly, and without the remotest reference in look, or tone, or gesture to her father.

He turned toward her suddenly.

"Hold your tongue, Miss!"

"Mamma, I shall go and see Fanny to-day," May continued, as if her father had not spoken. Her mother looked frightened, and turned to her deprecatingly with a look that said, "For Heaven's sake, don't!" Her father regarded her for a moment in amazement.

"What do you mean, you little vixen? Let me catch you disobeying me and going to see that ungrateful wicked girl, if you think fit!"

There was a moment in which May Newt turned pale, but she said, in a very low voice,

"I must go."

"May, I forbid your going," said Mr. Newt, severely and loudly.

"Father, you have no right to forbid me."

"I forbid your going," roared her father, planting himself in front of her, and quite white with wrath.

May said no more.

"A pretty family you have brought up, Mrs. Nancy Newt," said he, at length, looking at his wife with all the contempt which his voice expressed. "A son who ruins me by his extravagance, a daughter who runs away with--with"--he hesitated to remember the exact expression--"with a pauper-booby, and another daughter who defies and disobeys her father.

I congratulate you upon your charming family, upon your distinguished success, Mrs. Newt. Is there no younger brother of your son-in-law whom you might introduce to Miss May Newt? I beg your pardon, she is Miss Newt, now that her sister is so happily married," said Boniface Newt, bowing ceremoniously to his daughter.

Mrs. Newt clasped her hands in an utterly helpless despair, and unconsciously raised them in a beseeching attitude before her.

"The husband's duty takes him away from home," continued Mr. Newt.

"While he is struggling for the maintenance of his family he supposes that his wife is caring for his children, and that she has, at least, the smallest speck of an idea of what is necessary to be done to make them tolerably well behaved. Some husbands are doomed to be mistaken."

Boniface Newt bowed, and smiled sarcastically.

"Yes, and as if it were not enough to have my wife such a model trainer--and my son so careful--and my daughter so obedient--and my younger daughter so affectionate--I must also have trials in my business.

I expected a great loan from Van Boozenberg's bank, and I haven't got it.

He's an old driveling fool. Mrs. Newt, you must curtail expenses. There's one mouth less, and one Stewart's bill less, at any rate."

"Father," said May, as if she could not bear the cool cutting adrift of her sister from the family, "Fanny is not dead."

"No," replied her father, sullenly. "No, the more's the--"

He stopped, for he caught May's eye, and he could not finish the sentence.

"Mr. Newt," said his wife, at length, "perhaps Alfred Dinks is not poor."

That was the chance, but Mr. Newt was skeptical. He had an instinctive suspicion that no rich young man, however much a booby, would have married Fanny clandestinely. Men are forced to know something of their reputations, and Boniface Newt was perfectly aware that it was generally understood he had no aversion to money. He knew also that he was reputed rich, that his family were known to live expensively, and he was quite shrewd enough to believe that any youth in her own set who ran off with his daughter did so because he depended upon her father's money. He was satisfied that the Newt family was not to be a gainer by the new alliance. The more he thought of it the more he was convinced, and the more angry he became. He was still storming, when the door was thrown open and Mrs. Dagon rushed in.

"What does it all mean?" asked she.

Mr. Newt stopped in his walk, smiled contemptuously, and pointed to his wife, who sat with her handkerchief over her eyes.

"Pooh!" said Mrs. Dagon, "I knew 'twould come to this. I've seen her hugging him the whole winter, and so has every body else who has eyes."

And she shook her plumage as she settled into a seat.

"Mrs. Boniface Newt is unfortunately blind; that is to say, she sees every body's affairs but her own," said Mr. Newt, tauntingly.

Mrs. Dagon, without heeding him, talked on.

"But why did they run away to be married? What does it mean? Fanny's not romantic, and Dinks is a fool. He's rich, and a proper match enough, for a woman can't expect to have every thing. I can't see why he didn't propose regularly, and behave like other people. Do you suppose he was actually engaged to his cousin Hope Wayne, and that our darling Fanny has outwitted the Boston beauty, and the Boston beau too, for that matter? It looks like it, really. I think that must be it. It's a pity a Newt should marry a fool--"

"It is not the first time," interrupted her nephew, making a low bow to his wife.

Mrs. Dagon looked a little surprised. She had seen little jars and rubs before in the family, but this morning she seemed to have happened in upon an earthquake. She continued:

"But we must make the best of it. Are they in the house?"

"No, Aunt Dagon," said Mr. Newt. "I knew nothing of it until, half an hour ago, I read it in the paper with all the rest of the world. It seems it was a family secret." And he bowed again to his wife,

"Don't, don't," sobbed she. "You know I didn't know any thing about it.

Oh! Aunt Dagon, I never knew him so unjust and wicked as he is to-day. He treats me cruelly." And the poor woman covered her red eyes again with her handkerchief, and rocked herself feebly. Mr. Newt went out, and slammed the door behind him.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

A FIELD-DAY.

"Now, Nancy, tell me about this thing," said Mrs. Dagon, when the husband was gone.

But Nancy had nothing to tell.

"I don't like his running away with her--that looks bad," continued Mrs.

Dagon. She pondered a few moments, and then said:

"I can tell you one thing, Nancy, which it wasn't worth while to mention to Boniface, who seems to be nervous this morning--but I am sure Fanny proposed the running off. Alfred Dinks is too great a fool. He never would have thought of it, and he would never have dared to do it if he had."

"Oh dear me!" responded Mrs. Newt.

"Pooh! it isn't such a dreadful thing, if he is only rich enough," said Aunt Dagon, in a consoling voice. "Every thing depends on that; and I haven't much doubt of it. Alfred Dinks is a fool, my dear, but Fanny Newt is not; and Fanny Newt is not the girl to marry a fool, except for reasons. You may trust Fanny, Nancy. You may depend there was some foolish something with Hope Wayne, on the part of Alfred, and Fanny has cut the knot she was not sure of untying. Pooh! pooh! When you are as old as I am you won't be distressed over these things. Fanny Newt is fully weaned. She wants an establishment, and she has got it. There are plenty of people who would have been glad to marry their daughters to Alfred Dinks. I can tell you there are some great advantages in having a fool for your husband. Don't you see Fanny never would have been happy with a man she couldn't manage. It's quite right, my dear."

At this moment the bell rang, and Mrs. Newt, not wishing to be caught with red eyes, called May, who had looked on at this debate, and left the room.

While Mrs. Dagon had been so volubly talking she had also been busily thinking. She knew that if Alfred were a fool his mother was not--at least, not in the way she meant. There had been no love lost between the ladies, so that Mrs. Dagon was disposed to criticise the other's conduct very closely. She saw, therefore, that if Alfred Dinks were not rich--and it certainly was a question whether he were so really, or only in expectation from Mr. Burt--then also he might not be engaged to Hope Wayne. But the story of his wealth and his engagement might very easily have been the _ruse_ by which the skillful Mrs. Dinks meant to conduct her campaign in New York. In that case, what was more likely than that she should have improved Fanny's evident delusion in regard to her son, and, by suggesting to him an elopement, have secured for him the daughter of a merchant so universally reputed wealthy as Boniface Newt?