and dollars lying in the ---- Bank in
Massachusetts, so she would have Mosside purchased in her name for
Colonel Tiffton, not as a gift, for he would not accept it, but as a
loan, to be paid at his convenience. This was Alice's plan, and Mr.
Liston acted upon it at once. Taking his place in the motley assemblage,
he bid quietly, steadily, until at last Mosside, with its appurtenances,
belonged ostensibly to him, and the half-glad, half-disappointed people
wondered greatly who Mr. Jacob Liston could be, or from what quarter of
the globe he had suddenly dropped into their midst.

Colonel Tiffton knew that nearly everything had been purchased by him,
and felt glad that a stranger rather than a neighbor was to occupy what
had been so dear to him, and that his servants would not be separated.
With Ellen it was different. A neighbor might allow them to remain there
a time, she said, while a stranger would not, and she was weeping
bitterly, when, as the sound of voices and the tread of feet gradually
died away from the yard below, Alice came to her side, and bending over
her, said softly, "Could you bear some good news now--bear to know who
is to inhabit Mosside?"

"Good news?" and Ellen looked up wonderingly.

"Yes, good news, I think you will call it," and then as deliberately as
possible Alice told what had been done, and that the colonel was still
to occupy his old home, "As my tenant, if you like," she said to him,
when he began to demur.

When at last it was clear to the old man, he laid his hand upon the head
of the young girl and whispered huskily, "I cannot thank you as I would,
or tell you what's in my heart, God bless you, Alice Johnson."

Alice longed to say a word to him of the God to whom he had thus paid
tribute, but she felt the time was hardly then, and after a few more
assurances to Ellen started for Spring Bank, where Mrs. Worthington and
Adah were waiting for her.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE RIDE

They had kept it all from Hugh, telling him only that a stranger had
purchased Mosside. He had not asked for Rocket, or even mentioned him,
though his pet was really uppermost in his mind, and when he awoke next
morning from his feverish sleep and remembered Alice's proposal to ride,
he said to himself, "I cannot go, much as I might enjoy it. No other
horse would carry me as gently as Rocket. Oh! Rocket!"

It was a bright, balmy morning, and Hugh, as he walked slowly to the
window and inhaled the fragr