PLANNING AN ESCAPE.

She stood in the middle of the floor, pale and angry, and so impatient that her limbs fairly shook under her, when she heard her father's step on the stairs. He came in, looking worn and sorrowful, placed his hat on the table, and sat down, without regarding the young creature, or her furious wrath.

"Father!"

Hudson started up, and turned his startled eyes on the girl.

"What—what is the matter, Constance?"

"I followed you—I saw you go into that house. Who is she?"

"Constance, my child, spare me. Do not speak a harsh word of this noble girl. She is the child of my sister, who is dead."

"Your niece, and I never heard of such a person—another secret! Then there is this man Church, who treats you as if you were his slave. What does all this mean? Father, I will know."

The man stood up, white and trembling, with both hands clasped before him, as if afraid to plead for mercy with his own child.

That face and attitude touched all that was good in the girl's nature. With a sudden revulsion of feeling she flung her arms around his neck.

"Father! father! poor, dear father! I am cruel—I am wicked! But tell me everything—I want to be good to you—I will be good. Don't be afraid of me!"

"Afraid, Constance!"

A wan smile flitted across his lips pitiful to look upon.

"When shall I be other than afraid?"

"I am never afraid!" said Constance. "Tell me."

"I will," answered the old man, wearily. "Sit down here—no, not in that way, with your eyes to mine. It is not well that a child should look on her father's shame."

Constance slid down to the floor, laid her head on her father's knee, and waited for that hesitating voice to begin.

Hudson spoke almost in a whisper at first. By degrees his voice grew deep and husky, then sharp with pain. The girl listened, sometimes with a shrinking heart, sometimes with the kindle and glow of keen anger, when a fiery word would break from her lips, or a sob shake her bosom; but she seldom interrupted him, except by a half whispered question. Nor did she once lift her face, though his sank lower and lower, till his gray locks mingled with the rich brown of hers, as if snow had suddenly fallen there.

"Is this all, father?"

Constance said this with terrible constraint.

"Yes, my child! Is it not enough?"

"Not for me—not for me!" cried the girl, turning upon her knees, and lifting her arms upward. "If you had been a thousand times as bad, I should only love you, and hate him the more. Oh! how I do hate him!"

The old man began to shake as he felt her arms around him; and out of his grateful agony tears came, large and mournful, almost blinding him.

Constance wiped away these tears with a flimsy little handkerchief bordered with sham lace, and kissed the cheeks on which they had trembled.

"We will go away, father, you and I, where he can never find us, the toad, the rattlesnake!"

He looked at her wistfully.

"Oh! if we could!"

"But we will. Let him sit like a hundred-legged spider in his wicked old web; the world is wide, and I am a match for him, anyway."

"I thought that myself once," said Hudson, mournfully; "but he seems gifted with a fiend's ability. Go where I will, he finds me out; and after every struggle I am more firmly his slave."

"But it shall end here, father."

Hudson shook his head.

"You do not know him, Constance."

"He does not know me. Now that I understand everything, he shall find his match. Don't look so wild, father—I won't fight him. But you and I can run away, and we will."

Hudson almost smiled, but he only muttered again,

"Oh! if we could—if we could!"

"We will, father, make sure of that! When we get settled this cousin of mine shall come to us. I see now why we looked so much alike. It startled me. There, there, dear old father! don't fret, we will escape this snake."

Hudson kissed the girl and left the room.

When Constance went out from the room, all the force of character that had sustained her so long seemed to die out. She was pale as death, and walked unsteadily, like one just recovering from a hard blow; for the first time in her life she felt the force and burden of a dangerous confidence. In a single hour she had changed places with her own father. Henceforth she must think for him, care for and protect him, as the little match-girl up stairs protected and cared for the musician.

There was something ennobling in this idea, which, for a time, lifted Constance out of herself. Then another care arose, which brought many a bitter reflection with it—a birth of love and repulsion toward a single object, which a day before had not been recognized in her existence. She went up-stairs in search of little Rhoda, for it seemed impossible that she could live without some human sympathy.

Rhoda heard some one coming, and, jumping down from her chair, ran into the bed-room, where her father lay sleeping heavily.

"Father, dear! father, dear! do try and not breathe so loud; they will hear you. Some one is coming."

Weeks muttered something in his sleep, and turned in the bed, winding the blanket tightly around him.

"Dear me! what can I do—he's going off worse than ever!"

While these words were on her lips, she seized the coverlet and dragged it over the little man's face, thus smothering the sound she could not silence. Then she went out, closing the door softly behind her, and, blushing like a culprit, caught up Luke's tunic, which she had been mending, and stitched away dexterously, as if she thought that could drown the muffled sound which still came from the next room.