d
rocker, and Mrs. Oldfield had offered him some currant wine.

"Though I dunno's you would," said she, anxiously flaunting a principle
righteous as his own. "I s'pose you're teetotal."

The minister would not have wine, and he could not stay.

"I've really come on business," said he. "Do you know anything about Mr.
Oldfield?"

So strong was the family conviction that Nicholas had involved them in
disgrace, that Mary glanced up fiercely, and her mother gave an
apologetic cough.

"Well," said Young Nick's Hattie, "I dunno's I know anything particular
about father."

"Where is he, I mean," asked the minister. "I want to see him. I've got
to."

"Gran'ther's gone away," announced Mary, looking up at him with hot and
loyal eyes. "We don't know where." Her fingers trembled, and she lost
her stitch. She was furious with herself for not being calmer. It seemed
as if gran'ther had a right to demand it of her. The minister bent his
brows impatiently.

"Why, I depended on seeing Mr. Oldfield," said he, with the
fractiousness of a man recently ill. "This sickness of mine has put me
back tremendously. I've got to make the address, and I don't know what
to say. I meant to read town records and hunt up old stories; and then
when I was sick I thought, 'Never mind! Mr. Oldfield will have it all at
his tongue's end.' And now he isn't here, and I'm all at sea without
him."

This was perhaps the first time that Young Nick's Hattie had ever looked
upon her father's pursuits with anything but a pitying eye. A frown of
perplexity grew between her brows. Her brain ached in expanding. Mary
leaned forward, her face irradiated with pure delight.

"Why, yes," said she, at once accepting the minister for a friend,
"gran'ther could tell you, if he was here. He knows everything."

"You see," continued the minister, now addressing her, "there are facts
enough that are common talk about the town, but we only half know them.
The first settlers came from Devon. Well, where did they enter the town?
From which point? Sudleigh side, or along by the river? I incline to the
river. The doctor says it would be a fine symbolic thing to take the
procession up to the church by the very way the first settlers came in.
But where was it? I don't know, and nobody does, unless it's Nicholas
Oldfield."

Mary folded her hands, in proud composure.

"Yes, sir," said she, "gran'ther knows. He could tell you, if he was
here."

"I should like to inquire wh