Lofton started at Jenny's unexpected reply.
"Yes, sir."
"Did he speak to you?"
"Yes; he stopped and caught hold of my hand, saying, 'God bless you,
Jenny! We may never meet again. They have driven me away, because
they thought I meant to harm you.' But he said nothing wrong was in
his heart, and asked me to pray for him, as he would need my
prayers."
At this part of her narrative, Jenny wept bitterly, and her
auditor's eyes became dim also.
Satisfied that Jenny's story was true in every particular, Mr.
Lofton spoke kindly to her and sent her home.
A week after Mark Clifford left Fairview, word came that he had
enlisted in the United States' service and gone to sea as a common
sailor; accompanying this intelligence was an indignant avowal of
his father that he would have nothing more to do with him. To old
Mr. Lofton this was a serious blow. In Mark he had hoped to see
realized some of his ambitious desires. His daughter Jenny had been
happy in her marriage, but the union never gave him much
satisfaction. She was to have been the wife of one more
distinguished than a mere plodding money-making merchant.
Painful was the shock that accompanied the prostration of old Mr.
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