Pinkney. Well! It isn't such a
great difference, is it?"

"Of course not, my dear," laughed Mrs. Eland. "And from what people tell
me, my Uncle Lemuel must have been a good deal like a lemon."

"Then he was your uncle?" asked Tess.

"And--and was he real puckrative?" queried Dot. "For that's what Aunt
Sarah says a lemon is."

"He was a pretty sour man, I guess," said Mrs. Eland, shaking her head.
"I came East when I was a little girl, looking for him. That was after
my dear father and mother died and they had taken my sister away from
me," she added. "But what about the man that shot the eagle? Who was
he?"

Tess told her about their adventures of the previous Saturday in the
chestnut woods and the visit to the farmhouse afterward. Dot added:

"And that eagle man don't like your Uncle Lem-u-el, either."

"Why not?" asked Mrs. Eland, quickly, and flushing a little.

Before Tess could stop the little chatterbox--if she had thought to--Dot
replied: "'Cause he says your uncle's brother stole. He told us so. So
he did, Tess Kenway--now, didn't he?"

"You mustn't say such things," Tess admonished her.

But the mischief was done. The matron lost all her pretty color, and her
lips looked blue and her face drawn.

"What do you suppose he meant by that?" she asked slowly, and almost
whispering the question. "That my Uncle Lem's brother was a thief? Why,
Uncle Lem only had one brother."

"He was the one," Dot said, in a most matter-of-fact tone. "It was five
hundred dollars. And the eagle man said he and his mother suffered for
that money and she died--his mother, you know--'cause she had to work so
hard when it was gone. Didn't she, Tess?"

The conversation had got beyond Tess Kenway's control. She felt, small
as she was, that something wrong had been said. By the look on Mrs.
Eland's pale face the kind-hearted child knew that she was hurt and
confused--and Tess was the tenderest hearted child in the world.

"Oh, Mrs. Eland!" she crooned, coming close to the lady who sat before
her little stove, with her face turned aside that the children should
not see the tears gathering in her eyes. "Oh, Mrs. Eland! I guess Mr.
Buckham didn't mean that. Of course, none of _your_ folks could be
thieves--of course not!"

In a little while the matron asked the children a few more questions,
including Mr. Buckham's full name, and how he was to be reached. She had
not been in the neighborhood of Ipswitch Curve since she had firs