ortune, never transpired.

Upham people exchanged wishes to the effect that John Jennings and
Colonel Lamson might not take, in their old age, to sowing again the
wild oats of their youth. "John Jennings drank himself most into his
grave; an' as for Colonel Lamson, it's easy enough to see that he's
always had his dram, when he felt like it. If they get home sober an'
alive with all that money, they're lucky," people said. It was the
general impression in Upham that the Colonel had gone to Boston with
his sixty-five thousand dollars in his pocket. Lawyer Means's ancient
relative, who served as house-keeper, was reported to have confessed
that she was on tenter-hooks about it.

However, in a week the Colonel and his friend returned, and the most
anxious could find nothing in their appearance to justify their
gloomy fears. They had never looked so spick and span and prosperous
within the memory of Upham, for both of them were clad in glossiest
new broadcloth, of city cut, and both wore silk bell-hats, which gave
them the air of London dandies. Jennings, moreover, displayed in his
fine shirt-front a new diamond pin, and the Colonel stepped out with
stately flourishes of a magnificent gold-headed cane.

Soon it was told on good authority that the lawyer's house-keeper,
and John Jennings's also, had a present from the Colonel of a rich
black satin gown, that the lawyer had a gold-headed cane--which he
was, indeed, seen to carry, holding it stiff and straight, like a
roll of parchment, with never a flourish--and the Squire a gun
mounted in silver, and such a fishing-rod as had never been seen in
the village. When Lucina Merritt came to meeting the Sunday after the
Colonel's return, there glistened in her little ears, between her
curls, some diamond ear-drops, and Abigail wore a shawl which had
never been seen in Upham before.

Lawyer Means's female relative, and Jennings's house-keeper, said,
emphatically, that they didn't believe that either of them drank a
drop of anything stronger than water all the time they were gone.

The Colonel was radiant with satisfaction; he went about with his
face beaming as unreservedly as a child's who has gotten a treasure.
He often confided to Means his perfect delight in his new wealth.
"Hang it all, Means," he would say, "I wouldn't find a word of fault,
not a word, I'd strut like a peacock, if that poor little girl I
married was only alive, and I could buy her a damned thing out of it;