t bottles of quinine."

"What induced you to get so much?" asked Mrs. Gray, who had wiped away
her tears and was trying to look cheerful again.

"Captain Beardsley first called my attention to the fact that medicine
had gone up in price, and I saw by a paper I got in Nassau that the
rebels are already smuggling quinine across the Potomac," answered
Marcy. "There's a good deal of ague about here, and we'd be in a pretty
fix if we should all get down with it, and no medicine in the house to
help us out." Here he got up and drew his chair closer to his mother's
side, adding in a whisper, "I've twenty-one hundred dollars in gold in
my valise, lacking what I paid for my railroad ticket, and nearly four
hundred dollars of it belongs to me. The rest belongs to the captain of
the _Hollins._"

"Do you still cling to the hope that you will some day meet him again?"
asked his mother.

"I know it will be like hunting for a needle in a haystack, but if I
don't find him I shall have the satisfaction of knowing that I tried to,
and that I haven't spent any of his money. I'll keep it locked in my
trunk until my arm gets so that I can handle a spade, and then I'll hide
it in one of the flower beds. Now, how is everything about home? Has
Kelsey shown his ugly face here since I went away, or have you heard
anything from those 'secret enemies' that Wat Gifford spoke of? How has
Hanson behaved himself?"

Mrs. Gray's report was so satisfactory that Marcy was put quite at his
ease. She had had nothing to worry over, she told him, except, of
course, his absence and Jack's, and if she had not received so many
warnings she would not have suspected that there were such things as
secret enemies around her. But she had relaxed none of her vigilance,
and was always on her guard when any of the neighbors came to see her.
It was a dreadful way to live, but there was no help for it.

By the time Marcy had removed some of the stains of travel from his face
and clothing, supper was announced; and as he had to talk about
something during the meal, he entertained his mother with a minute
description of the exciting incidents that happened during the
_Hattie's_ homeward run. He could talk of these things in his ordinary
tone of voice, and he did not care who overheard him. More than that, he
was satisfied that every word he uttered in the presence of the girl who
waited at table would go straight to Hanson's ears, and he was really
talking for Hanson