The Ruined Family - Page 2

with a heavy jar; and the well-known sound of her father's footsteps was heard along the passage and on the stairs.

None of her children observed the hushed intensity with which Mrs. Graham listened, as their father ascended to the chamber. But they noticed that she became silent and more thoughtful than at first. In about ten minutes she arose and left the room.

"Something seems to trouble Ma, of late," Ellen observed, as soon as their mother had retired.

"So I have thought. She is certainly, to all appearance, less cheerful, "Mary replied.

"What can be the cause of it?"

"I hardly think there can be any very serious cause. We are none of us always in the same state of mind."

"But I have noticed a change, in Ma, for some months past--and particularly in the last few weeks," Anna said. "She is not happy."

"I remember, now, that I overheard her, about six weeks ago, talking to Alfred about something--the company he kept, I believe--and that he seemed angry, and spoke to her, I thought, unkindly. Since that time she has not seemed so cheerful;" Ellen said.

"That may be the cause; but still I hardly think that it is," Anna replied. "Alfred's principal associates are William Gray and Charles Williams; and they belong to our first families. Pa, you know, is very intimate with both Mr. Gray and Mr. Williams."

"It was to William Gray and Charles Williams, I believe, however, that Ma particularly objected."

"Upon what ground?"

"Upon the ground of their habits, I think, she said."

"Their habits? What of their habits, I wonder?"

"I do not know, I am sure. I only remember having heard Ma object to them on that account."

"That is strange!" was the remark of Anna. "I am sure that I have never seen anything out of the way, in either of them; and, as to William Gray, I have always esteemed him very highly."

"So have I," Mary said. "Both of them are intelligent, agreeable young men; and such, as it seems to me, are in every way fitted to be companions for our brother."

But Mrs. Graham had seen more of the world than her daughters, and knew how to judge from appearances far better than they. Some recent circumstances, likewise, had quickened her perceptions of danger, and made them doubly acute. In the two young men alluded to, now about the ages of eighteen and twenty, she had been pained to observe strong indications of a growing want of strict moral restraints, combined with a tendency towards dissipation; and, what was still more painful, an exhibition of like perversions in her only son, now on the verge of manhood,--that deeply responsible and dangerous period, when parental authority and control subside in a