In his heart Mr. Hamilton wished to revoke what he had said, but dread of the explosive storm which he knew would surely follow made him irresolute, until Carrie said, "Father, the first person of whom I have any definite recollection is Aunt Polly, and I shall be so lonesome if she goes away. For my sake let her stay, at least until I am dead."

This decided the matter. "She _shall_ stay," said Mr. Hamilton, and Aunt Polly, highly elated, returned to the kitchen with the news.

Lenora, who seemed to be everywhere at once, overheard it, and, bent on mischief, ran with it to her mother. In the meantime Mr. Hamilton wished, yet dreaded, to go down, and finally, mentally cursing himself for his weakness, asked Margaret to accompany him. She was about to comply with his request, when Mrs. Hamilton came up the stairs, furious at her husband, whom she called "a craven coward, led by the nose by all who chose to lead him." Wishing to shut out her noise, Mag closed and bolted the door, and in the hall the modern Xantippe extended her wrath against her husband and his offspring, while poor Mr. Hamilton laid his face in Carrie's lap and wept. Margaret was trying to devise some means by which to rid herself of her stepmother, when Lenora was heard to exclaim:

"Shall I pitch her over the stairs, Mag? I will if you say so."

Immediately Mrs. Hamilton's anger took another channel, and turning upon her daughter, she said, "What are you here for, you prating parrot? Didn't you tell me what Aunt Polly said, and haven't you acted in the capacity of reporter ever since?"

"To be sure I did," said Lenora, poising herself on one foot, and whirling around in circles; "but if you thought I did it because I blamed Aunt Polly, you are mistaken."

"What did you do it for, then?" said Mrs. Hamilton; and Lenora, giving the finishing touch to her circles by dropping upon the floor, answered, "I like to live in a hurricane--so I told you what I did.

Now, if you think it will add at all to the excitement of the present occasion, I'll get an ax for you to split the door down."

"Oh, don't, Lenora," screamed Carrie, from within, to which Lenora responded:

"Poor little simple chick bird, I wouldn't harm a hair of your soft head for anything. But there is a _man_ in there, or one who passes for a man, that I think would look far more respectable if he'd come out and face the tornado. She's easy to manage when you know how. At least Mag and I find her so."

Here Mr. Hamilton ashamed of himself and emboldened, perhaps, by Lenora's words, slipped back the bolt of the door, and walking out, confronted his wife.

"Shall I order pistols and coffee for two?" asked Lenora, swinging herself entirely over the bannister, and dropping like a squirrel on the stair below.

"Is Polly going to stay in this house?" asked Mrs. Hamilton.

"She is," was the reply.

"Then I leave to-night," said Mrs. Hamilton.

"Very well, you can go," returned the husband, growing stronger in himself each moment.

Mrs. Hamilton turned away to her own room, where she remained until supper time, when Lenora asked "If she had got her chest packed, and where they should direct their letters!" Neither Margaret nor her father could refrain from laughter.

Mrs. Hamilton, too, who had no notion of leaving the comfortable Homestead, and who thought this as good a time to veer round as any she would have, also joined in the laugh, saying, "What a child you are, Lenora!"

Gradually the state of affairs at the homestead was noised throughout the village, and numerous were the little tea parties where none dared speak above a whisper to tell what they had heard, and where each and every one were bound to the most profound secrecy, for fear the reports might not be true. At length, however, the story of the china closet got out, causing Sally Martin to spend one whole day in retailing the gossip from door to door. Many, too, suddenly remembered certain suspicious things which they had seen in Mrs. Hamilton, who was unanimously voted to be a bad woman, and who, of course, began to be slighted.

The result of this was to increase the sourness of her disposition; and life at the Homestead would have been one continuous scene of turmoil had not Margaret wisely concluded to treat whatever her stepmother did with silent contempt. Lenora, too, always seemed ready to fill up all vacant niches, until even Mag acknowledged that the mother would be unendurable without the daughter.

CHAPTER IX.

LENORA AND CARRIE.

Ever since the day on which Lenora had startled Carrie by informing her of her danger, she had been carefully kept from the room, or allowed only to enter it when Margaret was present. One afternoon, however, early in February, Mag had occasion to go to the village.

Lenora, who saw her depart, hastily gathered up her work, and repaired to Carrie's room, saying, as she entered it, "Now, Carrie, we'll have a good time; Mag has gone to see old deaf Peggy, who asks a thousand questions, and will keep her at least two hours, and I am going to entertain you to the best of my ability."

Carrie's cheek flushed, for she felt some misgivings with regard to the nature of Lenora's entertainment; but she knew there was no help for it, so she tried to smile, and said, "I am willing you should stay, Lenora, but you mustn't talk bad things to me, for I can't bear it."

"Bad things!" repeated Lenora; "who ever heard me talk bad things!

What do you mean?"

"I mean," said Carrie, "that you must not talk about your mother as you sometimes do. It is wicked."

"Why, you dear little thing," answered Lenora, "don't you know that what would be wicked for you isn't wicked for me?"

"No, I do not know so," answered Carrie; "but I know I wouldn't talk about my mother as you do about yours for anything."

"Bless your heart," said Lenora, "haven't you sense enough to see that there is a great difference between Mrs. Hamilton first, and Mrs.

Hamilton second? Now, I'm not naturally bad, and if I had been the daughter of Mrs. Hamilton first instead of Widow Carter's young one, why, I should have been as good as you--no, not as good as _you_, for you don't know enough to be bad--but as good as Mag, who, in my opinion, has the right kind of goodness, for all I used to hate her so."

"Hate Margaret!" said Carrie, opening her eyes to their utmost extent.

"What did you hate Margaret for?"

"Because I didn't know her, I suppose," returned Lenora; "for now I like her well enough--not quite as well as I do you, perhaps; and yet, when I see you bear mother's abuse so meekly, I positively hate you for a minute, and ache to box your ears; but when Mag squares up to her, shuts her in the china closet, and all that, I want to put my arms right round neck."

"Why, don't you like your mother?" asked Carrie, and Lenora replied:

"Of course I do; but I know what she is and I know she isn't what she sometimes seems. Why, she'd be anything to suit the circumstances. She wanted your father, and she assumed the character most likely to secure him; for, between you and me, he isn't very smart."

"What did she marry him for, then?" asked Carrie.

"Marry _him_! I hope you don't for a moment suppose she married _him_!"

"Why, Lenora, _ain't they married?_ I thought they were. Oh, dreadful!" and Carrie started to her feet, while the perspiration stood thickly on her forehead.

Lenora screamed with delight, saying, "You certainly have the softest brain I ever saw. Of course the minister went through with the ceremony; but it was not your father that mother wanted; it was his house--his money--his horses--his servants, and his name. Now, maybe in your simplicity you have thought that mother came here out of kindness to the motherless children; but I tell you she would be better satisfied if neither of you had ever been born. I suppose it is wicked in me to say so, but I think she makes me worse than I would otherwise be; for I am not naturally so bad, and I like people much better than I pretend to. Anyway, I like you, and _love_ little Willie, and always have, since the first time I saw him. Your mother lay in her coffin, and Willie stood by her, caressing her cold cheek, and saying, 'Wake up, mamma, it's Willie; don't you know Willie? I took him in my arms, and vowed to love and shield him from the coming evil; for I knew then, as well as I do now, that what has happened would happen. Mag wasn't there; she didn't see me. If she had, she might have liked me better; now she thinks there is no good in me; and if, when you die, I should feel like shedding tears, and perhaps I shall, it would be just like her to wonder 'what business _I_ had to cry--it was none of my funeral!'"

"You do wrong to talk so, Lenora," said Carrie; "but tell me, did you never have any one to love except Willie?"

"Yes," said Lenora; "when I was a child, a little, innocent child, I had a grandmother--my father's mother--who taught me to pray, and told me of God."

"Where is she now?" asked Carrie.

"In heaven," was the answer. "I know she is there, because when she died there was the same look on her face that there was on your mother's--the same that there will be on yours, when you are dead."

"Never mind," gasped Carrie, who did not care to be so frequently reminded of her mortality, while Lenora continued:

"Perhaps you don't know that my father was, as mother says, a bad man; though I always loved him dearly, and cried when he went away. We lived with grandmother, and sometimes now, in my dreams, I am a child again, kneeling by grandma's side, in our dear old eastern home, where the sunshine fell so warmly, where the summer birds sang in the old maple trees, and where the long shadows, which I called spirits, came and went over the bright green meadows. But there was a sadder day; a narrow coffin, a black hearse, and a tolling bell, which always wakes me from my sleep, and I find the dream all gone, and nothing left of the little child but the wicked Lenora Carter."

Here the dark girl buried her face in her hands and wept, while Carrie gently smoothed her tangled curls. After a while, as if ashamed of her emotion, Lenora dried her tears, and Carrie said, "Tell me more of your early life. I like you when you act as you do now."

"There is nothing more to tell but wickedness," answered Lenora.

"Grandma died, and I had no one to teach me what was right. About a year after her death mother wanted to get a divorce from father; and one day she told me that a lawyer was coming to inquire about my father's treatment of her. 'Perhaps,' said she, 'he will ask if you ever saw him strike me, and you must say that you have a great many times. 'But never did,' said I; and then she insisted upon my telling that falsehood, and I refused, until she whipped me, and made me promise to say whatever she wished me to. In this way I was trained to be what I am. Nobody loves me; nobody ever can love me; and sometimes when Mag speaks so kindly to you, and looks so affectionately upon you, I think, what would I not give for some one to love me; and then I go away to cry, and wish I had never been born."

Here Mrs. Hamilton called to her daughter, and gathering up her work, Lenora left the room just as Margaret entered it, on her return from the village.