Trends and Applications in Knowledge

Discovery and Data Mining PAKDD

2018 Workshops BDASC BDM
ML4Cyber PAISI DaMEMO Melbourne
VIC Australia June 3 2018 Revised
Selected Papers Mohadeseh Ganji
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 Mohadeseh Ganji · Lida Rashidi
Benjamin C. M. Fung · Can Wang (Eds.)

Trends and Applications

LNAI 11154

in Knowledge Discovery
and Data Mining
PAKDD 2018 Workshops, BDASC,
BDM, ML4Cyber, PAISI, DaMEMO
Melbourne, VIC, Australia, June 3, 2018
Revised Selected Papers

123
Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence 11154

Subseries of Lecture Notes in Computer Science

LNAI Series Editors

Randy Goebel
University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
Yuzuru Tanaka
Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan
Wolfgang Wahlster
DFKI and Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany

LNAI Founding Series Editor

Joerg Siekmann
DFKI and Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/1244
Mohadeseh Ganji Lida Rashidi
•

Benjamin C. M. Fung Can Wang (Eds.)

•

Trends and Applications

in Knowledge Discovery
and Data Mining
PAKDD 2018 Workshops, BDASC,
BDM, ML4Cyber, PAISI, DaMEMO
Melbourne, VIC, Australia, June 3, 2018
Revised Selected Papers

123
Editors
Mohadeseh Ganji Benjamin C. M. Fung
University of Melbourne McGill University
Melbourne, VIC, Australia Montreal, QC, Canada
Lida Rashidi Can Wang
University of Melbourne Griffith University
Melbourne, VIC, Australia Gold Coast, QLD, Australia

ISSN 0302-9743 ISSN 1611-3349 (electronic)

Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence
ISBN 978-3-030-04502-9 ISBN 978-3-030-04503-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04503-6

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018961439

LNCS Sublibrary: SL7 – Artificial Intelligence

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018

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 Preface

On June 3, 2018, five workshops were hosted in conjunction with the 22nd Pacific-Asia
Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (PAKDD 2018) in Melbourne,
Australia. The five workshops were the Pacific Asia Workshop on Intelligence and
Security Informatics (PAISI), Workshop on Biologically Inspired Techniques for
Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (BDM), the Workshop on Big Data Analytics
for Social Computing (BDASC), Data Mining for Energy Modeling and Optimization
(DaMEMO), and the Australasian Workshop on Machine Learning for Cyber-security
(ML4Cyber). This volume contains selected papers from five workshops. These
workshops provided an informal and vibrant opportunity for researchers and industry
practitioners to share their research positions, original research results, and practical
development experiences on specific challenges and emerging issues. The workshop
topics are focused and cohesive so that participants can benefit from interaction with
each other.
In the PAKDD 2018 workshops, each submitted paper was rigorously reviewed by
at least two Program Committee members. The workshop organizers received many
high-quality publications, but only 32 papers could be accepted for presentation at the
workshops and publications in this volume. On behalf of the PAKDD 2018 Organizing
Committee, we would like to sincerely thank the workshop organizers for their efforts,
resources, and time to successfully deliver the workshops. We would also like to thank
the authors for submitting their high-quality work to the PAKDD workshops, the
presenters for preparing the presentations and sharing their valuable findings, and the
participants for their effort to attend the workshops in Melbourne. We are confident that
the presenters and participants alike benefited from the in-person interactions and
fruitful discussions at the workshops.
We would also like to especially thank the PC chair, Prof. Dinh Phung, for patiently
answering our long e-mails, and the publications chairs, Dr. Mohadeseh Ganji and
Dr. Lida Rashidi, for arranging this volume with the publisher.

June 2018 Benjamin C. M. Fung

Can Wang
ML4CYBER 2018 Workshop Program Chairs’ Message

Machine learning solutions are now seen as key to providing effective cyber security.
A wide range of techniques are used by both researchers and commercial security
solutions.
This research includes the use of commonly employed approaches including
supervised learning and unsupervised learning.
However, cyber security problems raise challenges to machine learning. The chal-
lenges include the problems associated with correctly labelling data, the adversarial
nature of security problems, and for supervised tasks the asymmetry between legitimate
and malicious activity. Furthermore, malicious attackers have been witnessed to use the
machine learning approach to advance their knowledge and capacities. The aim of the
workshop is to highlight current research in the cyber security space.
ML4CYBER 2018 attracted 19 submissions, and nine of them were accepted after a
single-blind review by at least two reviewers. The overall acceptance rate for the
workshop was 47%.
The selected papers looked at a diverse range of security problems, ranging from the
whitelisting problem, intrusion detection, spam to specific security issues looking at
malware that performed webinjects and securing the network on a smart car. The
accepted papers used a range of techniques ranging from the classic approaches such as
decision trees and support vector machines to deep learning.
We are thankful to the researchers who made this workshop possible by submitting
their work. We congratulate the authors of the submissions who won prizes. We are
also thankful to our Program Committee, who provided reviews in a professional and
timely way, and the sponsors, the University of Waikato, Trendmicro, and
Data61/CSIRO, who provided the prizes. Thanks to the workshop chairs, who provided
the environment to put this workshop together.

June 2018 Zun Zhang

Lei Pan
Jonathan Oliver
 BDM 2018 Workshop PC Chairs’ Message

For the past few years, biologically inspired data mining techniques have been
intensively used in different data mining applications such as data clustering, classi-
fication, association rule mining, sequential pattern mining, outlier detection, feature
selection and bioinformatics. The techniques include neural networks, evolutionary
computation, fuzzy systems, genetic algorithms, ant colony optimization, particle
swarm optimization, artificial immune system, culture algorithms, social evolution, and
artificial bee colony optimization. A huge increase in the number of papers published in
the area has been observed in the last decade. Most of these techniques either hybridize
optimization with existing data mining techniques to speed up the data mining process
or use these techniques as independent data mining methods to improve the quality of
patterns mined from the data.
The aim of the workshop is to highlight the current research related to biologically
inspired techniques in different data mining domains and their implementation in
real-life data mining problems. The workshop provides a platform to researchers from
computational intelligence and evolutionary computation and other biologically
inspired techniques to get feedback on their work from other data mining perspectives
such as statistical data mining, AI and machine learning based data mining.
Following the call for papers, BDM 2018 attracted 16 submissions from five
countries, and seven of them were accepted after a blind review by at least three
reviewers. The acceptance rate for the workshop was 40%.
The selected papers highlight work in meta association rules discovery using swarm
optimization, causal exploration in genome data, citation field learning using RNN,
Affine transformation capsule net, frequent itemsets mining in transactional databases,
rare events classification based on genetic algorithms, and PSO-based weighted
Nadaraya–Watson estimator.
We are thankful to all the authors who made this workshop possible by submitting
their work and responding positively to the changes suggested by our reviewers for
their work. We are also thankful to our Program Committee, who dedicated their time
and provided us with their valuable suggestions and timely reviews. We wish to
express our gratitude to the workshop chairs, who were always available to answer our
queries and provided us with everything we needed to put this workshop together.

June 2018 Shafiq Alam

Gillian Dobbie
 Organization

Workshop of Big Data Analytics for Social Computing

(BDASC 2018)

General Chairs
Mark Western FASSA, Director of Institute for Social Science Research,
The University of Queensland, Australia
Junbin Gao Discipline of Business Analytics, The University
of Sydney Business School, The University of Sydney,
Australia

Program Chairs
Lin Wu Institute for Social Science Research, School
of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering,
The University of Queensland, Australia
Yang Wang Dalian University of Technology, China
Michele Haynes Learning Sciences Institute Australia, Australian Catholic
University, Brisbane Queensland, Australia

Program Committee
Meng Fang Tecent AI, China
Zengfeng Huang Fudan University, China
Liang Zheng University of Technology Sydney, Australia
Xiaojun Chang Carnegie Mellon University, USA
Qichang Hu The University of Adelaide, Australia
Zongyuan Ge IBM Research, Australia
Tong Chen The University of Queensland, Australia
Hongxu Chen The University of Queensland, Australia
Baichuan Zhang Facebook, USA
Xiang Zhao National University of Defence Technology, China
Hongcai Ma Chinese Academic of Science, China
Yifan Chen University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Xiaobo Shen Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Xiaoyang Wang Zhejiang Gongshang University, China
Ying Zhang Dalian University of Technology, China
Xiaofeng Gong Dalian University of Technology, China
Wenda Zhao Dalian University of Technology, China
XII Organization

Chengyuan Zhang Central Southern University, China

Kim Betts The University of Queensland, Australia

Sponsorship: ARC Centre of Excellence for Children and Families

Over the Life Course

Pacific Asia Workshop on Intelligence and Security Informatics

(PAISI)

Workshop Co-chairs
Michael Chau The University of Hong Kong, SAR China
Hsinchun Chen The University of Arizona, USA
G. Alan Wang Virginia Tech, USA

Webmaster
Philip T. Y. Lee The University of Hong Kong, SAR China

Program Committee
Victor Benjamin Arizona State University, USA
Robert Weiping Chang Central Police University, Taiwan
Vladimir Estivill-Castro Griffith University, Australia
Uwe Gläesser Simon Fraser University, Canada
Daniel Hughes Massey University, Australia
Eul Gyu Im Hanyang University, South Korea
Da-Yu Kao Central Police University, Taiwan
Siddharth Kaza Towson University, USA
Wai Lam The Chinese University of Hong Kong, SAR China
Mark Last Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel
Ickjai Lee James Cook University, Australia
Xin Li City University of Hong Kong, SAR China
You-Lu Liao Central Police University, Taiwan
Hsin-Min Lu National Taiwan University, Taiwan
Byron Marshall Oregon State University, USA
Dorbin Ng The Chinese University of Hong Kong, SAR China
Shaojie Qiao Southwest Jiaotong University, China
 Organization XIII

Shrisha Rao International Institute of Information

Technology - Bangalore, India
Srinath Srinivasa International Institute of Information
Technology - Bangalore, India
Aixin Sun Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Paul Thompson Dartmouth College, USA
Jau-Hwang Wang Central Police University, Taiwan
Jennifer J. Xu Bentley University, USA
Baichuan Zhang Facebook, USA
Yilu Zhou Fordham University, USA

Workshop on Data Mining for Energy Modelling and Optimization

(DaMEMO)

Workshop Chairs
Irena Koprinska University of Sydney, Australia
Alicia Troncoso University Pablo de Olavide, Spain

Publicity Chair
Jeremiah Deng University of Otago, New Zealand

Program Committee
Vassilios Agelidis Technical University of Denmark, Denmark
Jeremiah Deng University of Otago, New Zealand
Irena Koprinska University of Sydney, Australia
Francisco Martínez- University Pablo de Olavide, Spain
Álvarez
Michael Mayo University of Waikato, New Zealand
Lilian de Menezes City University London, UK
Lizhi Peng Jinan University, China
Bernhard Pfahringer University of Auckland, New Zealand
Martin Purvis University of Otago, New Zealand
Mashud Rana University of Sydney, Australia
Alicia Troncoso University Pablo de Olavide, Spain
Jun Zhang South China University of Technology, China
XIV Organization

Australasian Workshop on Machine Learning for Cyber-Security

(ML4Cyber)

General and Program Chairs

Jonathan Oliver TrendMicro
Jun Zhang Swinburne University of Technology

Program Committee
Jonathan Oliver TrendMicro
Jun Zhang Swinburne University of Technology, Australia
Ian Welch Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
Wanlei Zhou University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
Lei Pan Deakin University, Australia
Islam Rafiqul Charles Sturt University, Australia
Ryan Ko Waikato University, New Zealand
Iqbal Gondal Federation University
Yang Xiang Swinburne University of Technology, Australia
Vijay Varadharajan University of Newcastle
Paul Black Federation University
Lili Diao TrendMicro
Chris Leckie University of Melbourne, Australia
Matt Byrne Fireeye
Goce Ristanoski Data61
Baichuan Zhang Facebook
 Organization XV

Sponsors

University of Waikato, TrendMicro

 Contents

Big Data Analytics for Social Computing (BDASC)

A Decision Tree Approach to Predicting Recidivism

in Domestic Violence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Senuri Wijenayake, Timothy Graham, and Peter Christen

Unsupervised Domain Adaptation Dictionary Learning

for Visual Recognition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Zhun Zhong, Zongmin Li, Runlin Li, and Xiaoxia Sun

On the Large-Scale Transferability of Convolutional Neural Networks . . . . . . 27

Liang Zheng, Yali Zhao, Shengjin Wang, Jingdong Wang, Yi Yang,
and Qi Tian

Call Attention to Rumors: Deep Attention Based Recurrent Neural

Networks for Early Rumor Detection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Tong Chen, Xue Li, Hongzhi Yin, and Jun Zhang

Impact of Indirect Contacts in Emerging Infectious Disease

on Social Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Md Shahzamal, Raja Jurdak, Bernard Mans, Ahmad El Shoghri,
and Frank De Hoog

Interesting Recommendations Based on Hierarchical Visualizations

of Medical Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Ibrahim A. Ibrahim, Abdulqader M. Almars, Suresh Pokharel, Xin Zhao,
and Xue Li

Efficient Top K Temporal Spatial Keyword Search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Chengyuan Zhang, Lei Zhu, Weiren Yu, Jun Long, Fang Huang,
and Hongbo Zhao

HOC-Tree: A Novel Index for Efficient Spatio-Temporal Range Search. . . . . 93

Jun Long, Lei Zhu, Chengyuan Zhang, Shuangqiao Lin, Zhan Yang,
and Xinpan Yuan

A Hybrid Index Model for Efficient Spatio-Temporal Search in HBase . . . . . 108

Chengyuan Zhang, Lei Zhu, Jun Long, Shuangqiao Lin, Zhan Yang,
and Wenti Huang

Rumor Detection via Recurrent Neural Networks: A Case Study

on Adaptivity with Varied Data Compositions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Tong Chen, Hongxu Chen, and Xue Li
XVIII Contents

TwiTracker: Detecting and Extracting Events from Twitter

for Entity Tracking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Meng Xu, Jiajun Cheng, Lixiang Guo, Pei Li, Xin Zhang, and Hui Wang

Australasian Workshop on Machine Learning

for Cyber-Security (ML4Cyber)

Rapid Anomaly Detection Using Integrated Prudence Analysis (IPA) . . . . . . 137

Omaru Maruatona, Peter Vamplew, Richard Dazeley,
and Paul A. Watters

A Differentially Private Method for Crowdsourcing Data Submission . . . . . . 142

Lefeng Zhang, Ping Xiong, and Tianqing Zhu

An Anomaly Intrusion Detection System Using C5 Decision

Tree Classifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Ansam Khraisat, Iqbal Gondal, and Peter Vamplew

Deep Learning for Classifying Malicious Network Traffic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

K. Millar, A. Cheng, H. G. Chew, and C.-C. Lim

A Server Side Solution for Detecting WebInject: A Machine

Learning Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
Md. Moniruzzaman, Adil Bagirov, Iqbal Gondal, and Simon Brown

A Novel LSTM-Based Daily Airline Demand Forecasting Method Using

Vertical and Horizontal Time Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
Boxiao Pan, Dongfeng Yuan, Weiwei Sun, Cong Liang,
and Dongyang Li

A Transfer Metric Learning Method for Spammer Detection. . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

Hao Chen, Jun Liu, and Yanzhang Lv

Dynamic Whitelisting Using Locality Sensitive Hashing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

Jayson Pryde, Nestle Angeles, and Sheryl Kareen Carinan

Payload-Based Statistical Intrusion Detection for In-Vehicle Networks . . . . . . 186

Takuya Kuwahara, Yukino Baba, Hisashi Kashima, Takeshi Kishikawa,
Junichi Tsurumi, Tomoyuki Haga, Yoshihiro Ujiie, Takamitsu Sasaki,
and Hideki Matsushima

Biologically-Inspired Techniques for Knowledge Discovery

and Data Mining (BDM)

Discovering Strong Meta Association Rules Using Bees

Swarm Optimization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Youcef Djenouri, Asma Belhadi, Philippe Fournier-Viger,
and Jerry Chun-Wei Lin
 Contents XIX

ParallelPC: An R Package for Efficient Causal Exploration

in Genomic Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Thuc Duy Le, Taosheng Xu, Lin Liu, Hu Shu, Tao Hoang,
and Jiuyong Li

Citation Field Learning by RNN with Limited Training Data . . . . . . . . . . . . 219

Yiqing Zhang, Yimeng Dai, Jianzhong Qi, Xinxing Xu, and Rui Zhang

Affine Transformation Capsule Net . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

Runkun Lu, Jianwei Liu, Siming Lian, and Xin Zuo

A Novel Algorithm for Frequent Itemsets Mining

in Transactional Databases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
Huan Phan and Bac Le

Rare-Events Classification: An Approach Based on Genetic Algorithm

and Voronoi Tessellation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
Abdul Rauf Khan, Henrik Schiøler, Mohamed Zaki, and Murat Kulahci

Particle Swarm Optimization-Based Weighted-Nadaraya-Watson Estimator. . . 267

Jie Jiang, Yulin He, and Joshua Zhexue Huang

Pacific Asia Workshop on Intelligence and Security Informatics (PAISI)

A Parallel Implementation of Information Gain Using Hive in Conjunction

with MapReduce for Continuous Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
Sikha Bagui, Sharon K. John, John P. Baggs, and Subhash Bagui

Measuring Interpretability for Different Types of Machine

Learning Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
Qing Zhou, Fenglu Liao, Chao Mou, and Ping Wang

In Search of Public Agenda with Text Mining: An Exploratory Study

of Agenda Setting Dynamics Between the Traditional Media
and Wikipedia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
Philip T. Y. Lee

Modelling the Efficacy of Auto-Internet Warnings to Reduce Demand

for Child Exploitation Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318
Paul A. Watters

Data Mining for Energy Modeling and Optimization (DaMEMO)

Comparison and Sensitivity Analysis of Methods for Solar PV

Power Prediction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333
Mashud Rana, Ashfaqur Rahman, Liwan Liyanage,
and Mohammed Nazim Uddin
XX Contents

An Improved PBIL Algorithm for Optimal Coalition Structure Generation

of Smart Grids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345
Sean Hsin-Shyuan Lee, Jeremiah D. Deng, Martin K. Purvis,
Maryam Purvis, and Lizhi Peng

Dam Inflow Time Series Regression Models Minimising Loss

of Hydropower Opportunities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357
Yasuno Takato

Author Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369

Big Data Analytics for Social Computing
(BDASC)
 A Decision Tree Approach to Predicting
Recidivism in Domestic Violence

Senuri Wijenayake1 , Timothy Graham2 , and Peter Christen2(B)

1
Faculty of Information Technology, University of Moratuwa, Moratuwa, Sri Lanka
senuri.wijenayake@gmail.com
2
Research School of Computer Science, The Australian National University,
Canberra, Australia
{timothy.graham,peter.christen}@anu.edu.au

Abstract. Domestic violence (DV) is a global social and public health

issue that is highly gendered. Being able to accurately predict DV recidi-
vism, i.e., re-offending of a previously convicted offender, can speed up
and improve risk assessment procedures for police and front-line agen-
cies, better protect victims of DV, and potentially prevent future re-
occurrences of DV. Previous work in DV recidivism has employed dif-
ferent classification techniques, including decision tree (DT) induction
and logistic regression, where the main focus was on achieving high pre-
diction accuracy. As a result, even the diagrams of trained DTs were
often too difficult to interpret due to their size and complexity, mak-
ing decision-making challenging. Given there is often a trade-off between
model accuracy and interpretability, in this work our aim is to employ
DT induction to obtain both interpretable trees as well as high prediction
accuracy. Specifically, we implement and evaluate different approaches to
deal with class imbalance as well as feature selection. Compared to pre-
vious work in DV recidivism prediction that employed logistic regression,
our approach can achieve comparable area under the ROC curve results
by using only 3 of 11 available features and generating understandable
decision trees that contain only 4 leaf nodes.

Keywords: Crime prediction · Re-offending · Class imbalance

Feature selection

1 Introduction
Domestic violence (DV), defined as violence, intimidation or abuse between indi-
viduals in a current or former intimate relationship, is a major social and public
health issue. A World Health Organisation (WHO) literature review across 35
countries revealed that between 10% and 52% of women reported at least one
instance of physical abuse by an intimate partner, and between 10% and 30%
reported having experienced sexual violence by an intimate partner [15].
In Australia, evidence shows that one in six women (17%) and one in twenty
men (6%) have experienced at least one incidence of DV since the age of 15 [2,7],
c Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018
M. Ganji et al. (Eds.): PAKDD 2018, LNAI 11154, pp. 3–15, 2018.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04503-6_1
4 S. Wijenayake et al.

while a recent report found that one woman a week and one man a month have
been killed by their current or former partner between 2012–13 and 2013–14, and
that the costs of DV are at least $22 billion per year [3]. Whilst DV can affect
both partners in a relationship, these statistics emphasise the highly gendered
nature of this problem. More broadly, gender inequality has been identified as
an explaining factor of violence against women [27].
Worryingly, there has been a recent trend of increasing DV in Australia,
particularly in Western Australia (WA) where family related offences (assault
and threatening behaviour) have risen by 32% between 2014–15 and 2015–16 [28].
Furthermore, police in New South Wales (NSW) responded to over 58,000 call-
outs for DV related incidents in 2014 [6], and DV related assault accounted for
about 43% of crimes against persons in NSW in 2014–15 [20].
Given this context, besides harm to individuals, DV results in an enormous
cost to public health and the state. Indeed, it is one of the top ten risk factors
contributing to disease burden among adult women, correlated with a range of
physical and mental health problems [3,4].
Despite the importance of this issue, there has been relatively little research
on the risk of family violence and DV offending in Australia [5,10]. Recent calls
have been made to develop and evaluate risk assessment tools and decision sup-
port systems (DSS) to manage and understand the risk of DV within populations
and to improve targeted interventions that aim to prevent DV and family vio-
lence before it occurs. Whilst risk assessment tools have attracted criticism in
areas such as child protection [11], recent studies suggest that DV-related risk
assessment tools can be highly effective in helping police and front-line agencies
to make rapid decisions about detention, bail and victim assistance [17,18].
Contributions: As discussed in the next section, there are a number of chal-
lenges and opportunities for using data science techniques to improve the accu-
racy and interpretability of predictive models in DV risk assessment. In this
paper, we make a contribution to current research by advancing the use of a DT
approach in the context of DV recidivism to provide predictions about the risk
of re-offending that can be easily interpreted and used for decision-making by
front-line agencies and practitioners. We develop and experimentally evaluate
a technique to reduce the size and complexity of trained DTs whilst aiming to
maintain a high degree of predictive accuracy. Our approach is not limited to
specialised data collection or single use cases, but generalises to predicting any
DV-related recidivism using administrative data.

2 Related Work
A key factor when evaluating risk assessment tools and DSS is determining
whether they are able to accurately predict future DV offending amongst a
cohort of individuals under examination. A standard practice is to measure the
accuracy of risk assessment tools using Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC)
curve analysis [9], which we discuss in more detail later in this paper. Whilst some
tools have been shown to provide reasonably high levels of predictive accuracy
 A Decision Tree Approach to Predicting Recidivism in Domestic Violence 5

with ROC scores in the high 0.6 to low 0.7 range [24], there are a number of
limitations to current approaches.
In summarising the main limitations with current approaches to predicting
DV offences using risk assessment tools, Fitzgerald and Graham [10] argue that
such tools “often rely on detailed offender and victim information that must
form part of specialised data collection, either through in-take or self-report
instruments, clinical assessment, or police or practitioner observation” (p. 2).
In this way, the cost in terms of time and money for developing these tools is
prohibitively high and moreover they do not generalise easily across multiple
agencies, social and geographical contexts.
Although there are presumptions in the literature that the accuracy and
generalisability of such tools may be increased by combining both official and
clinical data sets, studies suggest that the benefits may be negligible, particu-
larly given the high associated costs [25]. Fitzgerald and Graham [10] post that
readily available administrative data may be preferable as opposed to data sets
that are more difficult and costly to generate. They evaluated the potential of
existing administrative data drawn from the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics
and Research (BOCSAR) Re-offending Database (ROD) to accurately predict
violent DV-related recidivism [21]. Recidivism is a criminological term that refers
to the rate at which individuals who, after release from prison, are subsequently
re-arrested, re-convicted, or returned to prison (with or without a new sentence)
during a specific time range following their release [26]. In this way, a recidivist
can be regarded as someone who is a ‘repeat’ or ‘chronic’ offender.
Fitzgerald and Graham [10] used logistic regression to examine the future
risk of violent DV offending among a cohort of individuals convicted of any DV
offence (regardless of whether it is violent or not) over a specific time period.
Using ten-fold cross validation they found the average AUC-ROC (described
in Sect. 4) of the models to be 0.69, indicating a reasonable level of predictive
accuracy on par with other risk assessment tools described previously. A question
that arises from the study is whether more sophisticated statistical models might
be able to: (1) improve the accuracy for predicting DV recidivism using admin-
istrative data; (2) help to determine and highlight risk factors associated with
DV recidivism using administrative data; and (3) provide easily interpretable
results that can be readily deployed within risk assessment frameworks.
A particular approach that has received recent attention is decision tree (DT)
induction [23], as we describe in more detail in the following section. In the con-
text of predicting violent crime recidivism and in particular DV-related recidi-
vism, Neuilly et al. [19] undertook a comparative study of DT induction and
logistic regression and found two main advantages of DTs. First, it provides out-
puts that more accurately mimic clinical decisions, including graphics (i.e., tree
drawings) that can be adapted as questionnaires in decision-making processes.
Secondly, the authors found that DTs had slightly lower error rates of classifi-
cation compared to logistic regression [19], suggesting that DT induction might
provide higher predictive accuracy compared to logistic regression. Notably, the
related random forest algorithm has recently been used in DV risk prediction
6 S. Wijenayake et al.

and management, with reasonably good predictive performance [13] (however,

not considering interpretability which is difficult with random forests).
While existing work on predicting DV recidivism using logistic regression and
DT induction is able to obtain results of reasonably high accuracy, the important
aspect of interpretability, i.e., being able to easily understand and explain the
prediction results, has so far not been fully addressed (this is not just the case in
predicting DV recidivism, but also in other areas where data science techniques
are used to predict negative social outcomes (e.g., disadvantage) [29]). In our
study, described next, we employ DT induction which will provide both accurate
as well as interpretable results, as we show in our evaluation in Sect. 4.

3 Decision Tree Based Recidivism Prediction

In this study we aim to develop an approach to DV recidivism prediction that is

both accurate and interpretable. We believe interpretability is as important as
high predictive accuracy in a domain such as crime prediction, because otherwise
any prediction results would not be informative and actionable for users who
are not experts in prediction algorithms (such as criminologists, law makers,
and police forces). We now describe the three major aspects of our work, DT
induction, class balancing, and feature selection, in more detail.
Decision Tree Induction: Decision tree (DT) induction [16] is a supervised
classification and prediction technique with a long history going back over three
decades [23]. As with any supervised classification method, a training data set,
DR , is required that contains ground-truth data, where each record r = (x, y) ∈
DR consists of a set of input features, xi ∈ x (with 1 ≤ i ≤ m and m = |x|
the number of input features), and a class label y. Without loss of generality we
assume y = {0, 1} (i.e. a binary, two-class, classification problem). The aim of
DT induction is, based on the records in DR , to build a model in the form of a
tree that is able to accurately represent the characteristics of the records in DR .
An example DT trained on our DV data set is shown in Fig. 2.
A DT is a data structure which starts with a root node that contains all
records in DR . Using a heuristic measure such as information gain or the Gini
index [16], the basic idea of DT induction algorithms is to identify the best
input feature in DR that splits DR into two (or more, depending upon the
actual algorithm used) partitions of highest purity, where one partition contains
those records in DR where most (ideally all) of their class label is y = 0 while
the other partition contains those records in DR where most (ideally all) of their
class label is y = 1. This process of splitting is continued recursively until either
all records in a partition are in one class only (i.e., the partition is pure), or a
partition reaches a minimum partition size (in order to prevent over-fitting [16]).
At the end of this process, each internal node of a DT corresponds to a test
on a certain input feature, each branch refers to the outcomes of such a test, and
each leaf node is assigned a class label from y based on the majority of records
that are assigned to this leaf node. For example, in Fig. 2, the upper-most branch
 A Decision Tree Approach to Predicting Recidivism in Domestic Violence 7

classifies records to be in class y = 0 based on tests on only two input features

(PP and PC, as described in Table 1).
A trained DT can then be applied on a testing data set, DS , where the class
labels y of records in DS are unknown or withheld for testing. Based on the
feature values xi of a test record r ∈ DS , a certain path in the tree is followed
until a leaf node is reached. The class label of the leaf node is then used to classify
the test record r into either class y = 0 or y = 1. For detailed algorithms the
interested reader is referred to [16,23]. As we describe in more detail in Sect. 4,
we will explore some parameters for DT induction in order to identify small trees
that are interpretable but achieve high predictive accuracy.
Class Balancing: Many prediction problems in areas such as criminology suffer
from a class imbalance problem, where there is a much smaller number of training
records with class label y = 1 (e.g., re-offenders) versus a much larger number
of training records with y = 0 (e.g., individuals who do not re-offend). In our
DV data set, as described in detail in Sect. 4, we have a class imbalance of
around 1:11, i.e., there are 11 times less re-offenders than those who did not re-
offend. Such a high class imbalance can pose a challenge for many classification
algorithms, including DTs [14], because high prediction accuracy can be achieved
by simply classifying all test records as being in the majority class. From a DV
risk prediction perspective, this is highly problematic because it means that the
classifier would predict every offender as not re-offending [13]. The accuracy
would be high, but such a risk prediction tool would not be useful in practice.
Two approaches can be employed to overcome this class imbalance challenge:
under-sampling of the majority class and over-sampling of the minority class [8]:

– Under-sampling of majority class: Assuming there are n1 = |{r = (x, y) ∈

DR : y = 1}| training records in class y = 1 and n0 = |{r = (x, y) ∈ DR :
y = 0}| training records in class y = 0, with n1 + n0 = |DR |. If n1 < n0 , we
can generate a balanced training data set by using all training records in DR
where y = 1, but we sample n1 training records from DR where y = 0. As
a result we obtain a training data set of size 2 × n1 that contains the same
number of records in each of the two classes y = 0 and y = 1.
– Over-sampling of minority class: One potential challenge with under-
sampling is that the resulting size of the training set can become small if
the number of minority class training records (n1 ) is small. Under-sampling
can also lead to a significant loss of detailed characteristics of the majority
class as only a small fraction of its training records is used for training. As
a result such an under-sampled training data set might not contain enough
information to achieve high prediction accuracy. An alternative is to over-
sample the training records from the minority class [8,14]. The basic idea is
to replicate (duplicate) records from the minority class until the size of the
minority class (n1 ) equals the size of the majority class (n0 ), i.e., n1 = n0 .

We describe in Sect. 4 how we applied these two class balancing methods to our
DV data set in order to achieve accurate prediction results.
8 S. Wijenayake et al.

Feature Selection: Another challenge to interpretable prediction results is the

often increasing number of features in data sets used in many domains. While
having more detailed information about DV offenders, for example, will likely
be useful to improve predictive accuracy, it potentially can also lead to more
complex models such as larger DTs that are more difficult to employ in practice.
Identifying which available input features are most useful for a given predic-
tion or classification problem is therefore an important aspect to obtain inter-
pretable prediction outcomes. As Hand [12] has shown, the first few most impor-
tant features are also those that are often able to achieve almost as high predic-
tion accuracy as the full set of available features. Any additional, less predictive
feature, included in a model can only increase prediction accuracy incremen-
tally. There is thus a trade-off between model complexity, interpretability, and
predictive accuracy. Furthermore, using less features will likely also result in less
time-consuming training times.
Besides interpretability, a second advantage of DTs over other classification
techniques is that the recursive generation of a DT using the input features
available in a training data set is actually based on a ranking of the importance
of the available features according to a heuristic measure such as information
gain or the Gini index [16]. The feature with the best value according to the
used measure is the one that is best suited to split the training data sets into
smaller sub-sets of highest purity, as described above.
Therefore, to identify a ranking of all available input features we can train a
first DT using all available features, and then remove the least important feature
(which has the smallest information gain or the highest Gini index value [16])
before training the next DT, and repeat this process until only one (the most
important) features is left. Assuming a data set contains m input features, we
can generate a sequence of m − 1 DTs that use from m to only 1 feature. For
each of these trees we calculate its predictive accuracy and assess its complex-
ity as the size of the generated tree. Depending upon the requirements of an
application with regard to model complexity (tree size, which affects the tree’s
interpretability), and predictive accuracy, a suitable tree can then be selected.
We illustrate in Algorithm 1 our overall approach which incorporates both
class balancing and iterative feature selection. The output of the algorithm is a
list of tuples, each containing a trained DT, the set of used input features, the size
of the tree, and the DT’s predictive quality (calculated as the AUC-ROC and the
F-measure [9] as described below). As we discuss in the following section, from
the eleven features available in our data set, not all will be important to predict
DV recidivism. We apply the approach described in Algorithm 1 and investigate
both the sizes of the resulting DTs as well as their predictive accuracy.

4 Experimental Evaluation

We now describe in more detail the data set we used to evaluate our DT based
prediction approach for recidivism in DV, explain the experimental setup, and
then present and discuss the obtained results.
 A Decision Tree Approach to Predicting Recidivism in Domestic Violence 9

Algorithm 1. Decision tree learning with class balancing and feature selection

Input:
- DR : Training data set
- DS : Testing data set
- M: Set of all input features in DR and DS
- cb: Class-balancing (sampling) method (under or over)
Output:
- C: List of classification result tuples
1: D0R = {r = (x, y) ∈ DR : y = 0} // All training records in class y = 0
2: D1R = {r = (x, y) ∈ DR : y = 1} // All training records in class y = 1
3: n0 = |D0R |, n1 = |D1R | // Number of training records in the two classes
4: if cb = under then:
5: DsR = D1R ∪ sample(D0R , n1 ) // Sample n1 training records from the majority class
6: else:
s 0 1
7: DR = DR ∪ replicate(DR , n0 ) // Replicate training records from minority class
8: C = [] // Initialise classification results list
9: Mu = M // Initialise the set of features to use as all features
10: while |Mu | ≥ 1 do:
s
11: dtu , lifu = T rainDecisT ree(DR , Mu ) // Train tree and get the least important feature
12: su = GetT reeSize(dtu )
13: aucu , f measu = GetP redictionAccuracy(dtu , DS )
14: C.append([dtu , Mu , su , aucu , f measu ]) // Append results to results list
15: Mu = Mu \ lifu // Remove least important feature from current features
16: return C

Data Set: The data set of administrative data extracted from the NSW Bureau
of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR) Re-offending Database (ROD) [21]
consists of n = 14, 776 records, each containing the eleven independent variables
(features) shown in Table 1 as well as the dependent class variable. The consid-
ered features are grouped to represent the offender, index offence, and criminal
history related characteristics of the offenders.
This study aims to predict whether an offender would re-commit a DV related
offence within a duration of 24 months since the first court appearance finalisa-
tion date (class y = 1) or not (class y = 0). DV related offences in class y = 1
include any physical, verbal, emotional, and/or psychological violence or intim-
idation between domestic partners.
The Australian and New Zealand Standard Offence Classification (ANZ-
SOC) [1] has recognised murder, attempted murder and manslaughter (ANZ-
SOC 111-131), serious assault resulting in injury, serious assault not resulting
in injury and common assault (ANZSOC 211-213), aggravated sexual assault
and non-aggravated sexual assault (ANZSOC 311-312), abduction and kidnap-
ping and deprivation of liberty/false imprisonment (ANZSOC 511-521), stalking
(ANZSOC 291), and harassment and private nuisance and threatening behaviour
(ANZSOC 531-532) as different forms of violent DV related offences.
Experimental Setup: As the aim of the study was to provide a more inter-
pretable prediction to officers involved, a DT classifier along with a graphical
representation of the final decision tree was implemented using Python version
3.4, where the scikit-learn (http://scikit-learn.org) machine learning library [22]
was used for the DT induction (with the Gini index as feature selection mea-
sure [16]), and tree visualisations were generated using scikit-learn and the pydot-
plus (https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pydotplus) package.
10 S. Wijenayake et al.

Table 1. Independent variables (features) in the ROD data set used in the experiments
as described in Sect. 4. Variable name abbreviations (in bold) are used in the text.

Variable Description
Offender demographic characteristics
Gender (G) Whether the offender was recorded in ROD as male or female
Age (A) The age category of the offender at the index court finalisation
was derived from the date of birth of the offender and the date
of finalisation for the index court appearance
Indigenous status (IS) Recorded in ROD as ‘Indigenous’ if the offender had ever
identified as being of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander
descent, otherwise ‘non-Indigenous’
Disadvantage areas index Measures disadvantage of an offenders residential postcode at
(quartiles) (DA) the index offence. Based on the Socio-Economic Index for
Areas (SEIFA) score (Australian Bureau of Statistics)
Index conviction characteristics
Concurrent offences (CO) Number of concurrent proven offences, including the principal
offence, at the offenders index court appearance
AVO breaches (AB) Number of proven breach of Appended Violence Order (AVO)
offences at the index court appearance
Criminal history characteristics
Prior juvenile or adult Number of Youth Justice Conferences or finalised court
convictions (PC) appearances with any proven offence(s) as a juvenile or adult
prior to the index court appearance
Prior serious violent Number of Youth Justice Conferences or finalised court
offence conviction past 5 appearances in the 5 years prior to the reference court
years (P5) appearance with any proven homicide or serious assault
Prior DV-related property Number of Youth Justice Conferences or finalised court
damage offence conviction appearances in the 2 years prior to the reference court
past 2 years (P2) appearance with any proven DV property damage offence
Prior bonds past 5 years Number of finalised court appearances within 5 years of the
(PO) reference court appearance at which given a bond
Prior prison or custodial Number of previous finalised court appearances at which given
order (PP) a full-time prison sentence/custodial order

In a preliminary analysis we identified that only 8% (n1 = 1, 182) of the

14, 776 offenders recommitted a DV offence within the first 24 months of the
finalisation of their index offence. The data set was thus regarded as imbalanced
and we applied the two class balancing approaches discussed in Sect. 3:

– Under-sampling of majority class: The re-offender and non-re-offender records

were separated into two groups, with 1, 182 re-offenders and 13, 594 non-
re-offenders respectively. Next, we randomly sampled 1, 182 non-re-offender
records, resulting in a balanced data set containing 2, 364 records.
– Over-sampling minority class: In this approach we duplicated re-offender
records such that their number ended up to be the same as the number
of non-re-offender records. The resulting balanced data set containing 27, 188
records was then shuffled so that the records were randomly distributed.

Each of the two balanced data sets were randomly split into a training and
testing set with 70% of all records used to train a DT and the remaining 30%
for testing. We applied the iterative feature elimination approach described in
Algorithm 1, resulting in a sequence of DTs trained using from 11 and 1 features.
 A Decision Tree Approach to Predicting Recidivism in Domestic Violence 11

To further explore the ability of DTs of different sizes to obtain high pre-
dictive accuracy, we also varied the scikit-learn DT parameter max leaf nodes,
which explicitly stops a DT from growing once it has reached a certain size. As
shown in Fig. 1, we set the value for this parameter from 2 (i.e., a single deci-
sion on one input feature) to 9, 999 (which basically means no limitation in tree
size). While a DT of limited size might result in reduced predictive accuracy, our
aim was to investigate this accuracy versus interpretability trade-off which is an
important aspect of employing data science techniques in practical applications
such as DV recidivism prediction.
We evaluated the predictive accuracy of the trained DTs using the commonly
used measures of Area Under the Receiver Operator Characteristic Curve (AUC-
ROC), which is calculated as the area under the curve generated when plotting
the true positive rate (TPR) versus the false positive rate (FPR) at a varying
threshold of the probability that a test record is classified as being in class y =
1 [9]. Because the TPR and FPR are always between 0 and 1, the resulting AUC-
ROC will also be between 0 and 1. An AUC-ROC of 0.5 corresponds to a random
classifier while and AUC-ROC of 1.0 corresponds to perfect classification.
As a second measure of predictive accuracy we also calculated the F-measure
[9], the harmonic mean of precision and recall, which is commonly used in classi-
fication applications. The F-measure considers and averages both types of errors,
namely false positives (true non-re-offenders wrongly classified as re-offenders)
and false negatives (true re-offenders wrongly classified as non-re-offenders).

Table 2. Baseline AUC-ROC results as presented in Fitzgerald and Graham [10] using
logistic regression on the same data set used in our study.

Experimental approach ROC AUC 95% Confidence interval

Internal validation (on full data set) 0.701 0.694–0.717
Ten-fold cross validation 0.694 0.643–0.742

Results and Discussion: In Table 2 we show the baseline results obtained by

a state-of-the-art logistic regression based approach using the same data set as
the one we used. As can be seen, an AUC-ROC of 0.694 was obtained, however
this approach does not allow easy interpretation of results due to the logistic
regression method being used.
The detailed results of our DT based approach are shown in Fig. 1, where
tree sizes, AUC-ROC and F-measure results can be seen for different number of
input features used. As can be seen, with large trees (i.e., no tree growing limits)
and using all input features, exceptionally high prediction results (with AUC-
ROC and F-measure of up to 0.9) can be achieved. However, the corresponding
DTs, which contain over 4, 000 nodes, will not be interpretable. Additionally,
such large trees would likely overfit the given testing data set.
12 S. Wijenayake et al.

As can be seen, almost independent of the number of input features (at least
until only around two features were used), a DT can be trained with an AUC-
ROC of around 0.65, which is less than 5% below the logistic regression based
state-of-the-art baseline approach shown in Table 2.
As is also clearly visible, the under-sampling approach (resulting in a much
smaller data set than over-sampling) led to worse prediction accuracy results
when using all input features, but also to much smaller trees. When using only
the few most important features the prediction accuracy of both class balanc-
ing methods are very similar. As can be seen in Table 3, the overall ranking
of features according to their importance is quite similar, with criminal history
features being prominent in the most important set of features.
We show one small example DT learned using the over-sampling method
based on only three features in Fig. 2. Such a small tree will clearly be quite easy
to interpret by DV experts in criminology or by police forces.

Fig. 1. Results for different number of features used to train a DT: Left with under- and
right with over-sampling. The top row shows the sizes of the generated DTs, the middle
row shows AUC-ROC and the bottom row shows F-measure results. The parameter
varied from 2 to 9, 999 was the maximum number of leaf nodes as described in Sect. 4.
 A Decision Tree Approach to Predicting Recidivism in Domestic Violence 13

Table 3. Feature importance rankings for over- and under-sampling as discussed in

Sect. 3 averaged over all parameter settings used in the experiments. The first ranked
feature is the most important one. Feature codes are from Table 1

Sampling approach 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Over-sampling PP PC A DA PO CO IS P2 G AV P5
Under-sampling PC PO PP CO A AV DA P2 IS G P5

Fig. 2. A small example decision tree (rotated to the left) learned using only three
input features (PP, PC, PO, see Table 1 for descriptions) and achieving an AUC-ROC
of 0.64. This is almost the same as achieved by much larger trees as shown in Fig. 1, and
less than 5% below a previous logistic regression based state-of-the-art approach [10].

5 Conclusion and Future Work

Domestic Violence (DV) is displaying a rising trend worldwide with a significant

negative impact on the mental and physical health of individuals and society at
large. Having decision support systems that can assist police and other front-line
officers in the assessment of possible re-offenders is therefore vital.
With regard to predictive tools that can be used by non-technical users,
interpretability of results is as important as high accuracy. Our study has shown
that even small decision trees (DTs), that are easily interpretable, trained on
balanced training data sets and using only a few input features can achieve
predictive accuracy almost as good as previous state-of-the-art approaches.
As future work, we aim to investigate the problem of producing interpretable
DT models when DV data sets are linked with external administrative data.
This could provide access to additional features to gain improved insights to the
decision making process, resulting in higher accuracy. While here we have used
eleven features only, future studies could deploy hundreds or even thousands of
features derived from administrative data sources. The experiments conducted in
this study provide a basis to develop methods for maximising both the accuracy
and interpretability of DV risk assessment tools using Big Data collections.

References
1. Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology. http://www.anzsoc.org
2. Australian Bureau of Statistics: Personal safety survey 2016 (2017)
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would not stay here and moan myself to death if I were you. What do you say
to that, my friend?” said Warren, tapping his friend on the shoulder, one
summer evening as he saw how sad and lonely Paul was. Warren’s sympathetic
heart went out to his friend. It grieved him sadly to see his lonely friend, as
Paul was never seen to smile since his mother’s death.
It was nearly a year since the opening of our story. All nature was dressed in its
mantle of green when Paul decided to travel. The evening before he was to
start he sat in the library with his head in his hands thinking of the past. A
light rap sounded on the door, which brought him back to the present, and
bidding the knocker come in Pompey put his wooly head in the room and said,
“Massa berry busy? I’s like to talk wid you a little while before you goes away,
as you go so early in de morning, so I’s just come now to see you.”
“All right, Pompey, take a chair and tell me all the news.”
“I fear I has sad news for you, as you will get sad from what I’s got to tell you.
I’s lived here ever since you was a child. Well, I first lived with Missus’ fodder,
and when Missus got married I just came and lived wid her, so you see, Massa
Paul, I just knows nearly all de history of your fodder and modder. Well, I
suppose you would like to have me tell something about them?”
“Yes, Pompey, tell me all you know about them,” answered Paul, all animation
to hear something about his parents.
“Well, just before Missus died she told me there was a little tin box for you in
de garret, and I was to tell you all I knows about her.
“Your modder was a lady—a perfect lady—and your father a gentleman, and a
baronet’s son in England. Your fadder had a fust lub, and your mudder caught
him looking at a picture of a sweet face and head all curls—a pretty face it was,
too. It made Missus very angry and she wanted him to burn it up, but he
wouldn’t and they quarreled often about it. He told Missus it would not be any
harm to her if he did keep it—the original was dead. But he could not give up
the picture. Well, Missus was bound to have her way, so she stoled de picture
and burned it up, and when Massa found it out he just came to me and told
me what I told you under de tree. I told him to just stay, but he said, ‘No, no, I
never can be trampled on by a woman. We cannot lib peacefully together and I
will go and lebe her for a while.’
“I do not think he intended to stay away always. Massa Paul, you are just like
your fodder in every respect. You just look and act like him. Your fodder was a
British soldier and when he went to Boston with the regiment your mother
saw him and just fell in lub wid him ober head and ears. Well, he was a
baronet’s son and she a beautiful lady wid lots of money—as your fodder
supposed. Well, he was deceived, and Missus just let him think what he might.
I does not think your fodder lubber your mudder very much; and your mother
—beautiful and rich—he thought so—he just married her for she loved him
fondly; but she had such a temper and did not care what she said when mad.
Well, in their last quarrel she just up and told him she wished he would go
away, as she wished nebber to see his face any more, and he just up and went
away. But I always thought he would come back. Wid de money out de army
he bought dis big farm and bringed Missus to lib wid him here, and all Missus’
fodder had to gib her was me and my ole woman. Just before he left he went
and deeded de farm to Missus, free from all incumbrance, and told me to take
care of you. Dat is all I knows about your fodder.
“Your mudder neber was de same woman as before; she would not quarrel wid
anyone, and was just as docile as a lamb. If she had been so when Massa was
here he never would hab went away. I’s sure ob dat, as he cried like a great
baby when he bid me goodbye. Now, Massa Paul, let me get de ole tin box an
see what is in it. May be dar is something in it you would like to see. Come,
Massa, is you dreaming?” exclaimed Pompey, seeing Paul sitting like a statue,
gazing absent-mindedly before him into the deep shadows of the room.
“My dear man,” answered Paul, extending his hand to his servant, “I see
clearly why mother always avoided telling me anything about my father, as she
knew she had done wrong and was afraid to lose my respect, as she knew I
dearly loved her.
“Pompey,” said Paul solemnly, “she was a kind and loving mother to me.”
“Yes, Paul, I’s seed her sit and cry ober your little curly head many a time and
say, ‘I love my baby and I will never let him see my temper;’ and I guess she
never did. Shall we get de box tonight, or leave it until morning? Den you can
see to read better,” said Pompey, getting up and yawning.
“We had better get it tonight, as I do not wish to let everybody know what
there is in the box,” answered Paul, getting up and taking the candle and
opening the library door.
They went up stairs and out into a little hall leading to the garret, Pompey
leading the way.
“Gosh, Massa, I just guess there has been nobody up here in a long time, as de
cobwebs are so thick I can just cut them down. Golly, Massa, what a hole to
put treasures away in,” said Pompey, pulling the cobwebs out of his woolly
hair.
He set the light down and opened a closet on his right, and after searching a
long time he exclaimed, “Dar is noffin here in dis hole but cobwebs and dust
and mice nests”—jerking out a handful and throwing it on the floor. “I just
like to know where dat box is,” said he, taking up the light and viewing the
place critically.
Pompey exclaimed, “Paul, if your mudder has hidden anything she didn’t want
everybody to find we will find it in a little closet made purposely for it and well
covered up from prying eyes.”
He was looking carefully around and hitting a cleet which hung loose from the
wall he espied a little door in the side, which the cleet covered up entirely
unless it was struck or run against.
“I think I have found the place where it is hidden,” said Paul, opening the
door and viewing the interior.
The wall was covered with dust, and at first he did not discover anything that
looked like a box. Just as he was giving up the search he espied a little hole in
the wall, and thrusting in his hand he drew out a little box the size of a cigar
box.
“I have found it at last,” said Paul, handing it to his servant.
He knew there was something in it which would deeply affect him. He closed
up the place and they went down stairs without speaking. They went directly to
the library and Pompey set the box on the table as he said, “Golly, Massa, what
do you suppose dar is in this box that your mother took such pains to hide it?”
“I do not know,” answered Paul, “I dread to open it. Something seems to tell
me it will make me more deeply in trouble than I am now. But, Pompey, that
box must be opened,” said the young man, getting up and taking the box in his
trembling hands.
He viewed it over and saw it opened with a peculiar spring. He touched it and
the cover flew up and disclosed the contents. He drew the papers out one after
another until all lay on the table. He discovered a picture case, and opening it
the fair face of a young girl about eighteen met his view. He gazed at it a
moment and in a trembling voice said, “It is like her; the same dreamy eyes
and head. Who can it be?”
He took out the picture and in the case were the initials, M. H., and a small
tress of auburn hair. He put it back in its place of concealment as he said, “My
God, here is a mystery I cannot solve. It must be the picture Pompey
supposed burned.”
As he viewed the picture he exclaimed, “Just the same form and features. I will
keep this as my own, and if I can find her or any one it resembles I will show it
to her. I am bound to find out this mystery sooner or later, as ‘where there’s a
will there’s a way.’”
 CHAPTER VII.

After placing the picture carefully in his pocket he picked up the papers one by
one and read each of them carefully. The first proved to be the marriage
certificate of his parents; the second and several others the receipts of the
interest paid on the mortgage before spoken of; the last was a letter in the
familiar handwriting of his mother. With the trembling hands he opened it. It
read thus:
“My dear son and only child: My career on earth is nearly run; I feel it
my duty to make an explanation. I sincerely hope I may find courage
to tell you all about your father and the secret mortgage, but if
anything should happen this note will be found and explain my
strange conduct. This mortgage was given when you were small. I
have tried to pay it but could not get enough money ahead, as it took
so much money to pay doctor bills and hired help. I gave the
mortgage to save my father from prison. He promised to pay it, but
never did, and I have only managed to pay the interest on it. The face
of the mortgage is three thousand dollars. I did not care to let
everyone know there was a shadow over your birthplace, so I have
kept it a profound secret. The mortgagee and our old servants are the
only beings who know of it. My dear son, I have taught you to be a
good farmer, and I pray to God you may be able to raise the
mortgage when it becomes due. It was given for twenty years at ten
per cent. interest. I would have told you before now, and perhaps we
could have paid it. But I could not; I have always told you it was free
from debt and I deeded it to you as the same. God forgive my
weakness! I was born a deceptive child and I have lived a deceitful life
the last twenty-five years. I loved your father, as noble and kind a
husband as ever lived. I deceived him cruelly, and after our marriage I
quarreled with him about a picture he had, and finally to torment him
I told him I had burned it. It made him very angry. One day he went
 to the village and I never saw him any more. My child, I feel as if he is
alive and if you ever meet him give him the picture and ask him to
forgive me. Tell him I died loving him and our child, he who has
never seen me out of temper. My son you will never see these lines
until I am clasped in death’s repose. I have erred, but I must die. As
God forgives his erring creatures I pray of you to forgive me.”
Your affectionate mother.

As Paul folded up the letter tears were falling on the table, and he exclaimed
aloud. “My mother, Oh, my mother! if I had only known your trouble I could
have made it lighter for you to bear. I freely forgive you in all. Who would not
forgive a mother’s errors?—she who has borne many trials for us while
young.”
“Massa,” exclaimed Pompey, breaking in on Paul’s murmurings, “you is just
like your fadder; he would have forgiven her if she would have done what was
fair by him after they were married. You see she liked to torment him, and she
did, once too often. Well, Paul, is you going away tomorrow now?” asked the
negro, looking fondly at his young master.
“Yes, Pompey, I am going if nothing happens to prevent me, as I have a great
mystery to solve and I cannot do it if I stay here.”
“Why Massa, de ’riginal ob dat picture is dead; Massa told Missus so; I heard
him tell her.”
“My man, there is a mystery about it and I must find it out!” exclaimed the
young man in a decisive tone.
He placed the papers carefully back and handed the box to his servant, saying,
“Keep this carefully, Pompey, as by and by the papers will be of great
importance to me.”
“I will do as you tells me,” answered the servant, taking the box from his
young master’s hand.
Many injunctions were given for the future, then each one returned to his
respective chamber, but not to sleep, as Pompey was thinking of his young
master, who was going away early the next morning and would not tell him
where he was going or when he should hear from him.
“Poor soul, I’s afraid he will neber come back. Oh, how I lub dat boy. May de
good Lawd watch ober him and keep him from bad company!”
Thus the negro mused until daylight dawned.
Paul threw himself on the bed but could not sleep. He was deeply troubled as
he lay thinking of his mother’s troubles, the mortgage, and lastly of his journey
on the morrow, and as morning dawned he had made up his mind where he
should go.
“I do not care; I will take the stage for New York and trust to Providence for
the rest.”
Thus he pondered until the servant’s bell rang.
He hastily dressed and went down stairs. As he made his appearance earlier
than usual Pompey said, “Guess you did not rest bery well, Massa?”
“No,” answered Paul, “I did not. Please hurry breakfast, as I have a long ride
this morning, Pompey, and should be on the road.” Soon breakfast was ready,
and after eating Paul bade his servants goodbye and started for the village.
Soon the same stage that bore Nettie on her homeward journey bore the sad,
broken-hearted young man from his once happy home. One desire caused him
to travel. Perhaps he would be able to find a person who resembled the picture
he had closely hidden in his pocket, or, find his lost love.
It was a year since Nettie returned home. Time drearily passed by and brought
momentarily each day the same longing thought: “Where is Paul?” She had
read of Paul’s mother’s death in the village paper and it deeply grieved her to
hear that he was all alone with no relative to bear the sorrow with him—no
one to console him in this trial. Warren had written her a letter, stating Paul
had started to the city.
She murmured as she sat in the little arbor by her home, “Oh, God, why did I
leave him as I did; he is alone, all alone; no kindred friends to comfort him;
Oh, why did I leave him?”
She was weeping piteously when a hand was laid on her head, and the owner
said, “Found at last, my own. Were you weeping for me?” asked the manly
voice by her side.
Nettie looked up in the manly face as she answered, “Forgive me, love, for
doubting you.”
She was overcome with joy, and fell fainting at his feet. He picked her up and
bore her into the cottage.
As he laid her down on the lounge he called, and Nettie’s mother came to her
side. As she returned to consciousness Paul stood motionless, gazing at the
mother and daughter.
“Can it be!” he exclaimed aloud.
“Can it be what?” asked the mother, looking up at the young man for the first
time, as she had been busily applying restoratives to her child and had
forgotten everything else, whom she had never seen in this condition before.
She noticed how thin and pale Nettie had grown lately, and it grieved her
deeply.
When she looked at the stranger she turned as white as her daughter and sank
on the floor by the side of the lounge.
“Sir, why did you come here? What have I done to be persecuted in this way,”
she asked.
She was gazing wildly at him, and it troubled him very much.
“My dear madam, you are laboring under a great mistake, as there is a mystery
here we must try to solve,” said the young man, taking the picture out of his
pocket and handing it to her saying, “Madam, did you ever see this?”
She took it with trembling hands and opened it and exclaimed passionately,
“Sir, where did you get this?”
“It was left in a little tin box for me by my mother,” answered Paul.
“How came she to have it? It was my picture I gave to a young man many
years ago. It is the same one, as here is the lock of hair and the initials of my
maiden name,” said the lady as she sat gazing at it earnestly and deeply
thinking.
It brought back memories of the past.
“How happy I was when I gave the picture to him; no shadow obscured the
fair horizon of my life; but time will change all things; babes will grow to be
men and women, and soon will grow to old age if God spares them to this
world of sorrow. I for one have borne many trials. Whenever cast down, the
thought will ever arise, ‘God doeth all things well.’ How strange it is that a
stranger should have a picture given to a friend twenty-five years ago,” said the
lady in meditation.
“Madam, it is strange, very strange indeed. It is a mystery. My father supposed
you dead and in time married my mother. Yet one of my servants told me my
father loved the picture so much that when he was told it was burned up he
went away and never has been heard of since. He left home when I was a babe
on my mother’s breast. I am going to find him if he is alive,” said the young
man vehemently.
“I must find him if he is in the land of the living.”
He bent over the couch where Nettie lay listening to her mother’s and lover’s
passionate words and she said, “My little love, your mother thinks she had
been deceived by my poor father, and now his son is trying to deceive her only
child. I am going away, and when I find my father or hear something definite
about him then I will return. All I ask is to prove faithful to me until I return.”
He pressed a kiss on her fair brow as he said, “God bless and keep you both
until I return.”
In a moment the door closed on the manly form of Paul Burton.
He went directly to the hotel where he was stopping and packing his little
wardrobe prepared to travel.
He thought of going to England but decided he would first go to the pleasure
seekers’ sea-side resorts.
Days and weeks went slowly by to the ones left in the cottage. At last it was
nearly Christmas; the inmates were looking out of the window at the people
hurrying along the thoroughfare. Presently the mother said, “Nettie, I wonder
if anyone thinks enough of us to give us something. Our little money is nearly
gone and what we have we cannot spare for niceties as it is all we have to keep
the wolf from the door.”
“God will provide for us,” answered Nettie.
“I wonder where Paul is today. It is a long time since he went away. Oh, if he
would only come back to us it would be all the pleasure I would ask. I care not
for presents. Oh, why does he not come!” exclaimed Nettie, looking wistfully
at her mother while the tears were springing to her eyes.
“My child, God grant that he may come back and bring good news. We can
only wait, watch, and pray,” answered the mother sorrowfully.
A few days after the above conversation they were looking out on the busy
people along the way. Many happy faces were to be seen. It was the long-
looked-for, happy day among the little children. One little one was standing in
the street viewing the shop windows when a runaway horse came dashing
along, and before she could have gotten out of the way a middle aged man
came running out of a shop near and caught her up in his arms, not soon
enough, however, to clear the danger as they were thrown down violently on
the sidewalk.
Mrs. Spaulding was the first to lend a helping hand, as it was just before her
door. Soon she bore the little inanimate form of the child into her own cottage
and laid her on lounge, where Nettie once lay, and began applying restoratives.
Soon she had the pleasure of seeing her open her bright blue eyes and feebly
ask for ‘mama.’
 CHAPTER VIII.

“My dear little one, your mama will soon be here, as I have sent Nettie out to
see if she can find any one claiming you.”
Soon Nettie came with the parents of the child. How thankful they were to
find her not seriously hurt. The doctor said there was no bone broken, only
bruises, and she would be well soon. Many were the presents lavished upon
Mrs. Spaulding and Nettie.
The gentleman was bruised very badly. The first question he asked the
bystanders was, “Who is that lady who took the little one in the cottage.”
“It is Mrs. Spaulding, a widowed lady,” answered several people.
“How is the child? I tried to save the little one from harm, but I fear I have
not.”
A young man came up to where the people were huddled together, and seeing
the stranger sitting on the sidewalk he said, “What is the matter here?”
“A little girl came near getting killed by a runaway horse, and this gentleman
was badly hurt trying to save her,” answered one.
The young man came to him and extending his hand said, “Sir, please let me
help you up. You can bear on my arm, and I will help you to a place where you
can rest.”
The stranger was gazing earnestly at the young man, as he said, “Kind sir, pray
what is your name? Do not think me impertinent; you resemble a person I
know.”
“Paul Burton, of Pine Island,” modestly answered the young man.
“Pray, sir, what is your age?”
“Twenty-four my last birthday.”
“My son, my son, my babe I cruelly deserted years ago!”
Paul looked at the stranger critically as he said, “Is this my father who left me
in my faithful old servant’s arms, and cruelly deserted my mother and left her
broken hearted?”
“My son, I have done wrong, I admit, but my wife told me to go; she did not
wish ever to see me again. She burned a picture I had, and we quarreled like
many other hot headed people have done, and she told me to go, and I did. I
was very angry then, as my English temper had risen; but, my son, I am going
home to ask forgiveness, and be reconciled to her,” said the father, while his
tears were falling silently.
“My mother is dead: she died last spring. She gave me this to give to you if I
should ever see you,” handing him the picture, before refused him.
With trembling hand he took it. As his son gave him the letter in which Paul’s
mother said, “Tell him I died loving him and our child—he who never saw me
out of temper,” the father buried his head in his hands and wept like an infant.
“Oh, why did I let my temper get the better of me? My son I have done
wrong. I have wronged her and you. God forgive! I intended to return before
now. I went back to England. My father was sick and wished for me to stay
with him until he died. My mother was a frail woman, and I stayed till she was
placed beside my father. Then I started to come back. The merchant ship I set
sail in was taken by a pirate vessel, and I was left on an island with several
other people whom they did not wish to murder in cold blood, and I only
returned to England about a year ago. I thought of you and your mother many
and many a night and prayed to God to spare your lives until I returned home.
My son, can you forgive your poor wretch of a father, for I am your father by
the laws of nature?”
Paul wept violently. As soon as he could command his voice he said, “My dear
father. I forgive you, and you shall go with me to our faithful old servants and
to our sad home; sad indeed has that home been to me since mother died.”
“Thanks, my son, for your kindness. May God deal gently with you.”
They were walking slowly along, as the father was weak and could not have
walked without the aid of something to lean on. It was beautiful indeed to see
the father leaning on and protected by the manly arm of his son, whom he
deserted in childhood. Forgiveness is a blessing we all can bestow on our
fellow beings. As God forgives us we should in return forgive our friends and
neighbors. Soon they reached the hotel where Paul was staying. He had
returned from his tour the day before and until now was ignorant of his
father’s whereabouts. Before he started to England he desired to visit his lady
love, and was on his way there when he found his father. After seeing his
father well cared for he prepared to go on the street again.
As he went to his father’s side he said, “Have you looked at the picture yet?”
“No, my son, I do not care to. The original of that picture has long been dead,
and why should I care to draw back sad memories of the past?”
“Father,” said Paul, solemnly, “the grave may give up its dead: or, in other
words, she may be living. Are you positive she is dead?”
“My son, the ship she sailed in was wrecked, and none of her crew ever was
heard from, and of course she went to the bottom of the deep blue sea with
them,” answered the father sadly.
“You may be mistaken in the ship she sailed in. How did you find out what
ship she went in?”
“By my father, when I returned from the war. No, my son, there is no
happiness for me on earth but to live near my child,” answered the father
piteously.
“Cheer up, father. I have good news. If you were able to walk back the place of
that accident we would be able to solve this great deliverance satisfactorily. I
was going to the cottage where the child was taken, when I found you,” said
Paul, buttoning up his overcoat.
“My son, if you will order a horse and cutter I will go with you, as I am deeply
interested in what you have been telling me,” answered the father, getting up
off the couch.
He could scarcely stand without the aid of something, but it being Christmas
day he wished to give something to the poor children he saw gazing in at the
shop windows, and thus it was that he came to be near enough to save one
little one from death.
Soon his son came with a horse and cutter, and helping his father in, they went
down the street where they first met, three hours before. Soon the cottage
door was reached. Paul kindly helped his father out of the cutter, and told the
driver to call for them in an hour.
They hurried up the steps to the cottage door, and tapping lightly, Nettie bid
them come in. Mrs. Spaulding was in the parlor where the child and her
parents were, and as soon as Nettie saw who the newcomers were she ran
lightly to her mother as she said:
“Mother, there is a gentleman in the sitting room anxious to see you.”
Mrs. Spaulding came in, and Paul said, “Mrs. Spaulding, this is my father. We
have called to see how the little girl is getting along.”
Mr. Burton, senior, came to the lady and said, “Minnie, is this you, who I
thought dead so many years? My son has given me a happy surprise this
Christmas day.”
Mrs. Spaulding stood as one in a trance. Finally she said, “Sir, how came you to
think I was dead?” She spoke sorrowfully.
“Dear lady, or my dear Minnie, (if I may call you so as of old) when I came
home from the army my father told me you had sailed in the vessel that sank
off the coast of S——, and as none of the crew lived to tell the sad tale, I
supposed you suffered the same fate, as I could not get any trace of you in
Liverpool.”
“No,” answered the lady, “your father was mistaken in the ship, as we landed
safe, and I am among the living, as you see.”
As she extended her hand he grasped it and pressed it to his lips and said,
“Mrs. Spaulding, my first and only love, forget the past and let us be friends as
of old. My son has doubtless told you of my past life—how I left his mother
when he was a babe and I have been a wanderer from my home ever since. I
am very sorry. My past conduct does not deserve any kindness from my noble
son. He tells me my wife died loving me, who does not deserve the love of any
one. I married her because she loved me and I supposed her rich; and thinking
you dead, desired to try to be happy with her; but it was not to be. She saw
your picture, and it made her angry to think I had loved one before her. She
wanted me to burn it. We had a few words about it, and she told me to go and
never let her see my face again. I went away. I was going home now to ask her
forgiveness when I met my son, he who I left in my old servant Pompey’s
arms. As God is my witness, what I tell you is the truth. Will you forgive me,
Minnie, and let the past be forgotten?” said Mr. Burton, taking the hand of the
lady and looking fondly in her face.
“Paul, can it be that after twenty-five years we are to meet in the presence of
our children?” said the lady, sinking on the breast of her old lover.
“Mother and father,” said both the young people, advancing towards them
from the parlor, “give us your blessing, and God grant we may all be happy
together this ever-to-be-remembered Christmas.”
“What say you, my love,” asked the senior Paul Burton. “God bless you, my
children! May the blessing of God ever fall on your pathway and strew it with
flowers,” said the father, placing Nettie’s hand in that of his son. “And if your
mother will be my wife we will begin our lives anew.”
“One week from today; what say you, Minnie?” said the gentleman.
A letter was written then and two days before New Year’s they started for that
place, and when it became known at the house of Paul that he was going to
bring a wife home, and had found his father, what a hustle-bustle there was
among the servants to make everything look its best. Pompey said, “Paul is
coming home wid his fadder and wife, and day shall see what a good ole man
and woman Paul left to see to things. Golly, I’s in hopes she’ll be a better wife
to him than his mudder was to his fadder.”
They did not know yet that the father was going to fetch a wife with him, as
that part was kept a secret, yet all the people about knew that Paul was coming
home with a wife and that he had found his father, who they all supposed
dead.
All was made ready at the farm house for the wedding. Just as the sun was
going down New Year’s evening the two couples came. Many kind greetings,
were exchanged between the parties, and Paul’s father was kindly received by
all.
Soon the minister came, and Paul and Nettie were made one, and the minister
was closing the book when Paul, senior, said, “One more couple is waiting to
be united.”
All eyes were turned to see who they could be, when he went to Mrs.
Spaulding and extending his arm they went before the minister and were
united. Only one person there had an idea who the second couple could be,
and that was John Hilton. He recognized Paul Burton, senior, but did not
mention it, as he did not wish his sister to know his thoughts. Happy were all
the friends on that New Year’s day.
The next morning the newly married couples went over to their home, where
Paul Burton, junior, called his servants together and told them they had a new
mistress, and he wished them to obey her and also his father’s wife. They all
seemed delighted.
Paul, senior, stayed until spring, then he took his wife over to England to live
there on the estate left him by his father.

Some ten years later we enter the home of Paul Burton, Jr. Two little curly-
headed boys are playing on the floor, and the mother, a frail, sickly little being,
was sitting in the arm chair where Paul’s mother used to sit. Traces of tears
were on her pale cheeks, when a familiar voice said, “Cousin Nettie, why have
you been weeping?”
“Oh, Warren, I suppose our house is to be sold if we can not raise the balance
of the mortgage. The mortgagee is a cold stern man, and will not give Paul
one day’s time on it, or part of it even. There is only five hundred back. I don’t
see how we can get it in five days. Oh, if I could only sell my manuscripts and
raise that amount, what a happy surprise I could give my noble husband,” said
Nettie, lowering her head on her hands and weeping violently.
“Nettie, let me see the manuscripts and perhaps I can dispose of them for
you,” said her cousin.
She went to a secret drawer and brought him the writings.
He read them through and told her he was going to the city and he would see
what he could get for them, promising her he would be back in four days’ time
to pay the mortgage. She made him promise not to let Paul know anything
about it.
“I have written them unknown to him, and when I could not do anything
else,” she explained.
Warren took the papers, and the same evening started for the city.
After Warren had gone Paul came home. He had been out to see if he could
raise the money. He was down hearted. He sat down by Nettie’s side as he
said. “In four days, we’re homeless if I cannot raise the money. If I only had
time to get it from over the water—but I cannot get it anywhere. Oh, Nettie,
what will we do? I have worked hard to pay this old debt, but it is impossible
for me to get that amount of any one, as I have sold everything we can spare
and the mortgagee will not release it so I can give another mortgage on it to
get the balance. Oh, dear, what shall we do?”
“Trust in God. He will not see us suffer,” answered his trusting little wife, as
she put her arms around his neck and kissed his fair brow. “God doeth all
things well.”
Time flew drearily away. Four days were gone; the fifth came bright and clear.
The mortgagee had come for his pay, and the five hundred remained unpaid.
With sad and sorrowful hearts the husband and wife sat, when a man drove up
to the door and handed the wife a package. She tore it open, and out rolled
eight hundred dollars. She handed it to her husband as she said, “A friend in
need is a friend indeed.”
“My dear, how did you come to get such an amount of money?” asked her
husband, while the tears stood in his eyes.
“My dear,” answered his wife, “I have earned it, when I was not able to do
anything else, with my pen, and by God’s help I have been able to help you a
little while you were doing all you could.”
“God bless you, my noble little wife.”
The mortgage was paid, and one little home was made happy; and a happy
surprise it was to this noble young farmer to think he had a lovely little
helpmate.

The End.
 Transcriber’s Notes
The Table of Contents for this eBook was created by the transcriber for the reader's
convenience.

Except for the places noted below, spelling and grammar has been retained from the
original text

Pg. 5 - Corrected typo: Missing space inserted: “Warren,the eldest”

Pg. 5 - Corrected typo: ‘.’ > ‘,’: “pleasure it afforded. except”

Pg. 5 - Corrected typo: Missing ‘s’: “her cousin were”

Pg. 5 - Corrected typo: ‘boquet’ > ‘bouquet’

Pg. 5 - Corrected typo: “Her cousin. Nettie” > “Her cousin, Nettie”

Pg. 6 - Changed ‘surprized’ > ‘surprised’ to match rest of text

Pg. 7 - Corrected typo: ‘boquet’ > ‘bouquet’

Pg. 8 - Corrected typo: ‘your’ > ‘young’: “What a handsome your man”

Pg. 9 - Corrected typo: ‘for’ > ‘far’: “wandered for out”

Pg. 9 - Corrected typo: ‘.’ > ‘?’: “great act of kindness.”

Pg. 11 - Added missing close quote at chapter end

Pg. 12 - Removed extra comma: “Why, does mother not tell me”

Pg. 13 - Missing ‘.’ inserted at paragraph end: “this little lady”

Pg. 13 - Corrected typo: “resolved never to do” > “resolved ever to do”

Pg. 14 - Corrected typo: “The depth of love I owe” > “The debt of love I owe”

Pg. 15 - Corrected typo: ‘.’ > ‘,’: “in the street. springing”

Pg. 16 - Changed Tis > ’Tis to match rest of text

Pg. 17 - Corrected typo: ‘boquets’ > ‘bouquets’

Pg. 17 - Corrected typo: ‘boquet’ > ‘bouquet’

Pg. 19 - ‘?’ moved inside quote: “where is cousin”?

Pg. 20 - Corrected typo: ‘.’ > ‘,’: “No. no, I can not”

Pg. 20 - Corrected typo: single quote to double: “since Monday?’”

Pg. 21 - Removed extraneous single quote: “‘As he spoke he”

Pg. 22 - Removed extraneous opening quote: ““Warren saw he was”

Pg. 22 - Missing double quote inserted at paragraph end: “packing your trunk.”

Pg. 30 - Corrected typo: ‘then’ > ‘than’: “sooner then”

Pg. 31 - Changed double quotes to single: ““no” for an answer”

Pg. 32 - Removed extraneous opening quote: ““Nettie was speaking”

Pg. 33 - Corrected typo: ‘sustaine’ > ‘sustain’

Pg. 33 - Added missing ‘.’: “in this country”

Pg. 33 - Removed extraneous closing quote: “from the story.”

Pg. 34 - Corrected typo: ‘farwell’ > ‘farewell’

Pg. 35 - Corrected typo: ‘abscence’ > ‘absence’

Pg. 35 - Added missing opening quote: “The young man”

Pg. 35 - Corrected typo: “here in America” > “here to America”

Pg. 41 - Removed extraneous closing quote: “about her.””

Pg. 41 - Changed nested quote marks to single: ““No, no, I never ... for a while.””

Pg. 42 - Removed extraneous closing quote: “dearly loved her.””

Pg. 43 - Missing closing quote added at paragraph end: “from prying eyes.”

Pg. 45 - Corrected typo: ‘sincerly’ > ‘sincerely’

Pg. 46 - Added missing comma: “to his servant, saying “Keep”

Pg. 46 - Corrected typo: ‘bourne’ > ‘borne’

Pg. 47 - Corrected typo: ‘drearly’ > ‘drearily’

Pg. 49 - Corrected typo: ‘friends’ > ‘friend’: “to a friends”

Pg. 49 - Corrected typo: ‘passonate’ > ‘passionate’

Pg. 50 - Corrected typo: ‘hr’ > ‘her’

Pg. 51 - Changed single quote to double to match end: “‘Who is that lady”

Pg. 52 - Added missing ‘.’: “see me again She burned”

Pg. 53 - Missing closing quote added at paragraph end: “of the past?”

Pg. 55 - Added missing opening quote: “And if your mother”

Pg. 56 - Corrected typo: ‘ond’ > ‘and’