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“Are you not well, to-day?” asked Mrs. Bacon, as the family gathered around the dinner-table, and she remarked her husband’s unusually sober face.

“Not very well,” he replied.

“What ails you, father?” said Mary, with tender concern in her voice, and her eyes were turned upon him with affectionate earnestness.

“Nothing of much consequence, child,” was answered evasively. “I shall be better after dinner.”

And as Mr. Bacon spoke he poured out a larger glass of brandy than usual–he always had brandy on the table at dinner time–and drank it off. This soon took away the keen edge of suffering from his feelings, and he was able to affect a measure of cheerfulness. But he did not deceive the eyes of Mrs. Bacon and Mary.

“I wonder what ails father!” said Mary, as soon as she was alone with her mother.

“I don’t know,” answered Mrs. Bacon, thoughtfully, “he seems troubled about something.”

“I saw that Mr. Dyer, who keeps tavern over in Brookville, talking with father at the wood-pile this morning.”

“You did!” Mrs. Bacon spoke with a new manifestation of interest.

“Yes; and I thought, as I looked at him out of the window, that he appeared to be angry about something.”

Mrs. Bacon did not reply to this remark. Soon after, on meeting her husband, she said to him,

“What did Mr. Dyer want this morning?”

“Something that he will not get,” replied Mr. Bacon.

“The money he loaned you?”

“Yes.”

“It’s impossible to pay it back now, in the dead of winter,” said Mrs. Bacon, in a troubled tone of voice, “he ought to know that.”

“And he does know it.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That to lift the mortgage now was out of the question.”

“Won’t he be troublesome? You remember how he acted towards poor old Mr. Peabody.”

“I know he’s a hard-hearted, selfish man. I don’t believe that there is a spark of humanity about him. But he’ll scarcely go to extremities with me. I don’t fear that.”

“Did he threaten?”

“Yes. But I hardly think that he was in earnest.”

How far this last remark of old Mr. Bacon was correct, the following brief conversation will show. It took place between Dyer and a miserable pettyfogging lawyer, in Brookville, named Grant.

“I’ve got a mortgage on old Bacon’s farm that I wish entered up,” said the tavern-keeper, on calling at the lawyer’s office.

“Can’t he pay it off?” inquired Grant.

“Of course not. He’s being running down for the last six or seven years, and is now on his last legs.”

“And so you mean to trip him up before he falls of himself.” The lawyer spoke in an unfeeling tone and with a sinister smile.

“If you please to say so,” returned Dyer. “I’ve wanted that farm of his for some time past. When I took the mortgage on it my object was not a simple investment at legal interest; you know that I can do better with money than six per cent a year.”

“I should think you could,” responded the lawyer, with a chuckle.

“When I loaned Bacon three hundred dollars, of course I never expected to get the sum back again. I understood, perfectly well, that sooner or later the mortgage would have to be entered up.”

“And the farm becomes yours for half its real value.”

“Exactly.”

“Are you not striking to soon?” suggested the lawyer.

“No.”

“Some friend may loan him the amount.”

Dyer shook his head.

“It’s a tight time in Brookville.”

“I know.”

“And still better for my purpose,” said Dyer, in a low, meaning, voice; “drunkards have few friends; none, in fact, willing to risk their money on them. Put the screws to Bacon, and his farm will drop into my hands like a ripe cherry.”

“You can hardly call Bacon a drunkard. You never see him staggering about, nor lounging in bar-rooms.”

“Do you remember his farm seven years ago?”

“Perfectly well.”

“Look at it now.”

“There’s a great difference, certainly.”

“Isn’t there! What’s the reason of this?”

“Intemperance, I suppose.”

“Drunkenness!” said the tavern-keeper. “That is the right word. He don’t spend much in bar-rooms, but look over his store bill and you’ll find rum a large item.”