we keep an open mind, so God fills
it."

She stood still in the middle of the room, listening to his rapid
steps in the direction of the parlor. Then Hester did a thing very
unusual for her to do of a Sunday. She put on her shawl and bonnet and
walked out to see Mary Ballard.

No one ever knew what passed between Peter Junior and his father in
that parlor. The Elder did not open his lips about it either at home
or at the bank.

That Sunday evening some one saw Peter Junior and his cousin walking
together up the bluff where the old camp had stood, toward the sunset.
The path had many windings, and the bluff was dark and brown, and the
two figures stood out clear and strong against the sky of gold. That
was the last seen of either of the young men in the village. The one
who saw them told later that he knew they were "the twins" because one
of them walked with a stick and limped a little, and that the other
was talking as if he were very much in earnest about something, for he
was moving his arm up and down and gesticulating.

CHAPTER XII

MYSTERIOUS FINDINGS

Monday morning Elder Craigmile walked to the bank with the stubborn
straightening of the knees at each step that always betokened
irritation with him. Neither of the young men had appeared at
breakfast, a matter peculiarly annoying to him. Peter Junior he had
not expected to see, as, owing to his long period of recovery, he had
naturally been excused from rigorous rules, but his nephew surely
might have done that much out of courtesy, where he had always been
treated as a son, to promote the orderliness of the household. It was
unpardonable in the young man to lie abed in the morning thus when a
guest in that home. It was a mistake of his wife to allow Peter Junior
a night key. It induced late hours. He would take it from him. And as
for Richard--there was no telling what habits he had fallen into
during these years of wandering. What if he had come home to them with
a clear skin and laughing eye! Was not the "heart of man deceitful
above all things and desperately wicked"? And was not Satan abroad in
the world laying snares for the feet of wandering youths?

It was still early enough for many of the workmen to be on their way
to their day of labor with their tin dinner pails, and among them Mr.
Walters passed him, swinging his pail with the rest, although he was
master of his own foundry and employed fifty men. He had always gone
early to work, a