"We was jest telling about our loss, Reuben's loss," said Mrs. Ducklow
in a manner which betrayed no little anxiety to conciliate that terrible
woman.

"Very well! don't let me interrupt." And Miss Beswick, slipping the
shawl from her head, sat down.

Her presence, stiff and prim and sarcastic, did not tend in the least to
relieve Mr. Ducklow from the natural embarrassment he felt in giving his
version of Reuben's loss. However, assisted occasionally by a judicious
remark thrown in by Mrs. Ducklow, he succeeded in telling a sufficiently
plausible and candid-seeming story.

"I see! I see!" said Reuben, who had listened with astonishment and pain
to the narrative. "You had kinder intentions towards me than I gave you
credit for. Forgive me, if I wronged you!" He pressed the hand of his
adopted father, and thanked him from a heart filled with gratitude and
trouble. "But don't feel so bad about it. You did what you thought best
I can only say, the fates are against me."

"Hem!" coughing, Miss Beswick stretched up her long neck and cleared her
throat "So them bonds you had bought for Reuben was in the house the
very night I called!"

"Yes, Miss Beswick," replied Mrs. Ducklow; "and that's what made it so
uncomfortable to us to have you talk the way you did."

"Hem!" The neck was stretched up still farther than before, and the
redoubtable throat cleared again. "'Twas too bad! Ye ought to have told
me. You'd actooally bought the bonds,--bought 'em for Reuben, had ye?"

"Sartin! sartin!" said Ducklow.

"To be sure!" said Mrs. Ducklow.

"We designed 'em for his benefit, a surprise, when the right time
come," said both together.

"Hem! well!" (It was evident that the Beswick was clearing her decks for
action.) "When the right time come! yes! That right time wasn't
somethin' indefinite, in the fur futur', of course! Yer losin' the bonds
didn't hurry up yer benevolence the least grain, I s'pose! Hem! let in
them boys, Sophrony!"

Sophronia opened the door, and in walked Master Dick Atkins, (son of the
brush-burner,) followed, not without reluctance and concern, by Master
Taddy.

"Thaddeus! what you here for?" demanded the adopted parents.

"Because I said so," remarked Miss Beswick, arbitrarily. "Step along,
boys, step along. Hold up yer head, Taddy, for ye a'n't goin' to be hurt
while I'm around. Take yer fists out o' yer eyes, and stop blubberin'.
Mr. Ducklow, that boy knows somethin' about Reuben's cowpon bonds."