t
up!"

"Oh!" gasped Dot.

"I'm so sorry, Mrs. Eland," whispered Tess, patting her arm.

"It was very dreadful," said the gray lady, softly. "Teeny and I were
grabbed up by some men in a wagon, and the horses galloped us away to
safety. But our poor mother and father were buried in the ruins of the
house."

"And you saved the letters?" said Tess.

"But lost Teeny," said Mrs. Eland, sadly. "There was such confusion in
the camp of the refugees that many families were separated. By and by I
came East--and I brought these letters. But--but they do me no good now.
I can prove nothing by them. 'Corroborative evidence,' so the lawyers
say, is lacking----

"Well, well, well!" she said, breaking off suddenly. "All that does not
interest you little ones."

"So you couldn't give the letters to your Uncle Lem-u-el?" questioned
Dot, careful to get the name right this time.

"I never could even see my Uncle Lemuel," said Mrs. Eland, with a sigh.
"I believe he knew I was searching for him during the last few years of
his life; but he always kept out of my way."

"Oh! wasn't that bad of him!" cried Tess.

"I don't know. His end was most miserable. People said he must have at
one time accumulated a great deal of money. He was supposed to be as
rich a man as lived in Milton--richer than your Uncle Peter Stower. But
he must have squandered it all in some way. He died finally in the
Quoharis poorhouse. He did not belong in that town; but he wandered
there in a storm and they took him in."

"And didn't they find lots of money in his clothes when he was dead?"
queried Dot, who had heard something about misers.

"Mercy, no! He had no money, I am quite sure," said the lady,
confidently. "The old townfarm keeper over there tells me that Mr.
Lemuel Aden left nothing but some worthless papers and letters and a
little memorandum book, or diary. I suppose they are hardly worth my
claiming them. At least, I never have done so, and Uncle Lemuel died
quite fifteen years ago."

After that Mrs. Eland had no more to say about Lemuel Aden for the time
being, but tried to amuse her little visitors, as usual. And Tess never
told that joke about Briggs, the baker.

This brings us, naturally, to the eve of All Saints, an occasion much
given over to feasting and foolery. "When churchyards yawn--if they ever
do yawn," suggested Neale, as he and the two oldest Corner House girls
set forth on the crisp evening in question, to walk out to Carrie