Foster took more interest than formerly in what was going on in the village near by.

He attended the various political meetings held at the "Travellers' Rest," and was a prominent man on training and election days.

After a while, his wife began to look on these days with a troubled feeling, for they generally sent him home in a sad plight; and it took nearly a week for him to get settled down again to his work.

Thus the declension began, and its progress was too sadly apparent to the eyes of Mrs.Foster, even before others, less interested than herself, observed it.

At the end of ten years from the happy wedding day, the farm, now more like a wilderness than a beautiful garden, was seized and sold for debt.