om influencing it. He was poor, too, except for the
comfortable certainty that his father could not let him want; but so far
as he had been able, he had renounced his expectations from his father's
estate in order that he might seem to be paying Northwick's indebtedness
to the company. Doubtless it was only an appearance; in the end the
money his father left would come equally to himself and Louise; but in
the meantime the restitution for Northwick did cramp Eben Hilary more
for the moment than he let his son know. So he thought it well to allow
Matt to go seriously to work on account of it, and to test his economic
theories in the attempt to make his farm yield him a living. It must be
said that the prospect dismayed neither Matt nor Suzette; there was that
in her life which enabled her to dispense with the world and its
pleasures and favors; and he had long ceased to desire them.

The Ponkwasset directors had no hesitation in accepting the assignment
of property made them by Northwick's daughter. As a corporate body they
had nothing to do with the finer question of right involved. They looked
at the plain fact that they had been heavily defrauded by the former
owner of the property, who had inferably put it out of his hands in view
of some such contingency as he had finally reached; and as it had
remained in the possession of his family ever since, they took no
account of the length of time that had elapsed since he was actually the
owner. They recognized the propriety of his daughter's action in
surrendering it, and no member of the Board was quixotic enough to
suggest that the company had no more claim upon the property she
conveyed to them than upon any other piece of real estate in the
commonwealth.

"They considered," said Putney, who had completed the affair on the part
of Suzette, and was afterwards talking it over with his crony, Dr.
Morrell, in something of the bitterness of defeat, "that their first
duty was to care for the interests of their stockholders, who seemed to
turn out all widows and orphans, as nearly as I could understand. It
appears as if nobody but innocents of that kind live on the Ponkwasset
dividends, and it would have been inhuman not to look after their
interests. Well," he went on, breaking from this grievance, "there's
this satisfactory thing about it; somebody has done something at last
that he intended to do; and, of course, the _he_ in question is a _she_.
'She that was' Miss Suzette