inds to search you!"

"Tozer! let my child alone. How dare you touch her--her as is as good
as Mr. Copperhead's lady? What's she got to do with your dirty papers?
Do you think Phoebe would touch them--with a pair of tongs?" cried the
angry grandmother.

Phoebe shrank with all the cowardice of guilt. Her nerves were unstrung
by weariness and excitement. And Tozer, with his little red eyes blazing
upon her, was very different in this fury of personal injury, from the
grandfather of the morning, who had been ready to see every virtue in
her.

"I believe as you've got it!" he cried, giving her a shake. It was a
shot at a venture, said without the least idea of its truth; but before
the words had crossed his lips, he felt with a wild passion of rage and
wonder that it was true. "Give it up, you hussy!" he shrieked, with a
yell of fury, his face convulsed with sudden rage, thickly and with
sputtering lips.

"Tozer!" cried his wife, flinging herself between them, "take your hands
off the child. Run, run to your room, my darling; he's out of his
senses. Lord bless us all, Sam, are you gone stark staring mad?"

"Grandpapa," said Phoebe, trembling, "if I had it, you may be sure it
would be safe out of your way. I told you I knew something about it, but
you would not hear me. Will you hear me now? I'll make it up to
you--double it, if you like. Grandmamma, it is a poor man he would drive
to death if he is not stopped. Oh!" cried Phoebe, clasping her hands,
"after what has happened this morning, will you not yield to me? and
after all the love you have shown me? I will never ask anything, not
another penny. I will make it up; only give in to me, give in to me--for
once in my life! Grandpapa! I never asked anything from you before."

"Give it up, you piece of impudence! you jade! you d--d deceitful----"

He was holding her by the arm, emphasizing every new word by a violent
shake, while poor old Mrs. Tozer dropped into a chair, weeping and
trembling.

"Oh! it ain't often as he's like this; but when he is, I can't do
nothing with him, I can't do nothing with him!" she cried.

But Phoebe's nerves strung themselves up again in face of the crisis. She
shook him off suddenly with unexpected strength, and moving to a little
distance, stood confronting him, pale but determined.

"If you think you will get the better of me in this way, you are
mistaken," she said. "I am not your daughter; how dare you treat me so?
Grandmamma, fo