till at last the time-honored oaken doors closed upon them in relentless
banishment. It mattered not that amid new scenes prosperity once more
opened her sheltering arms and kept the wolf from the door. The new
owner of Deering Castle, as the villagers had admiringly christened the
grand old place, refused to sell it. Robert Garrett, with the littleness
born of a mean, cramped nature, clung to this coveted possession as the
one thing to be held, though all else were taken. He had money but knew
not how to enjoy it. His household, for the most part, reflected the
coarseness of his nature, and as time passed his retribution was meted
out in rebellious sons and daughters, who wasted his substance and
dragged down his name still further in the mire.

Twenty years had gone by. Herbert Blaine and his bright-eyed wife slept
in the city of the dead. With their latest breath they had, one by one,
adjured their beloved daughter, the only surviving child since the civil
war had laid low their three manly boys, to regain possession of the old
homestead. Time, they assured her, would make all things even, and long
before they laid down the burden of life, they had seen how the wife's
curse beat upon the head of the man who had so oppressed them. They had
learned to feel pity for him whom they had once despised. Not so Jessie
Blaine. She was a woman now, and had been, for a few brief years, till
death robbed her, a happy wife. But never could she forget that dismal
twilight hour when her innocent eyes had photographed the hateful,
sneering face of her mother's enemy; when her ears had phonographed his
mocking words. The scene had haunted her waking and sleeping, for many
days; and still after all these years she could and did remember.

She rejoiced when she heard that wild Ben Garrett had broken nearly
every law of the decalogue, and was wrecking the peace of all who cared
for him. "They richly deserve it all;" she said, when some fresh