olboy does--an' I swan he wa'n't much more'n a
schoolboy, either. I s'pose if ever hell is in a man's heart,--an' we
mostly all see it there sometime, even if we don't feel it,--why, there
was hell in his then.

"All of a sudden there was a rap on the hall door. He never moved, an'
so I went. I whistled, I rec'lect, so's she shouldn't suspect nothin'
from our not goin' in where she was right off. An' a messenger-boy was
out there in the passage with a letter for Mr. Loneway.

"I took it in to him. He turned himself around an' opened it, though I
don't believe he knew half what he was doin'. An' what do you guess come
tumblin' out o' that envelope? Fifty-four dollars in bills. Not a word
with 'em.

"Then he broke down. 'It's Lovett,' he says, 'it's Lovett's done
this--the assistant cashier. Maybe he's told some o' the other fellows
at the desks next, an' they helped. They knew about her bein' sick. An'
they can't none of 'em afford it,' he says, an' that seemed to cut him
up worst of all. 'I'll give it back to him,' he says resolute. 'I can't
take it from 'em, Peleg.'

"I says, 'Hush up, Mr. Loneway, sir,' I says. 'You got to think o' her.
Take it,' I told him, 'an' thank God it ain't as bad as it was. Who
knows,' I ask' him, 'but what the doctor might turn out wrong?'

"Pretty soon I got him to pull himself together some, an' I shoved him
into the other room, an' I went with him, an' talked on like an idiot so
nobody'd suspect--I didn't hev no idea what.

"She was settin' up in the same black waist, with a newspaper hung
acrost the head o' the iron bed to keep the draught out. All of a
sudden,--

"'John!' says she.

"He went close by the bed.

"'Is everything goin' on good?' she ask' him.

"'Everything,' he told her right off.

"'Splendid, John?' she ask' him, pullin' his hand up by her cheek.

"'Splendid, Linda,' he says after her.

"'We got a little money ahead?' she goes on.

"'Bless me, if he didn't do just what I had time to be afraid of. He
hauls out them fifty-four dollars an' showed her.

"She claps her hands like a child.

"'Oh, _goodey_!' she says; 'I'm so glad. I'm so glad. Now I can tell
you,' she says to him.

"He took her in his arms an' kneeled down by the bed, an' I tried to
slip out, but she called me back. So I stayed, like an' axe in the
parlour.

"'John,' she says to him, 'do you know what Aunt Nita told me before I
was married? "You must always look the prettiest you know how