arching his eyebrows. "I fail to
comprehend your meaning."

"You know Philip has been tenderly reared, and has always had a
comfortable home--"

"He will have a comfortable home now, Mrs. Pope. Probably you are not
aware that it cost the town two thousand dollars last year to maintain
the almshouse. I can show you the item in the town report."

"I don't doubt it at all, husband," said Mrs. Pope gently. "Of course
you know all about it, being a public man."

Squire Pope smiled complacently. It pleased him to be spoken of as a
public man.

"Ahem! Well, yes, I believe I have no inconsiderable influence in town
affairs," he responded. "I am on the board of selectmen, and am chairman
of the overseers of the poor, and in that capacity I shall convey Philip
Gray to the comfortable and well-ordered institution which the town has
set apart for the relief of paupers."

"I don't like to think of Philip as a pauper," said Mrs. Pope, in a
deprecating tone.

"What else is he?" urged her husband. "His father hasn't left a cent. He
never was a good manager."

"Won't the furniture sell for something, Benjamin?"

"It will sell for about enough to pay the funeral expenses and
outstanding debts-that is all."

"But it seems so hard for a boy well brought up to go to the poorhouse."

"You mean well, Almira, but you let your feelings run away with you. You
may depend upon it, it is the best thing for the boy. But I must write a
letter in time for the mail."

Squire Pope rose from the breakfast-table and walked out of the room
with his usual air of importance. Not even in the privacy of the
domestic circle did he forget his social and official importance.

Who was Squire Pope?

We already know that he held two important offices in the town of
Norton. He was a portly man, and especially cultivated dignity of
deportment. Being in easy circumstances, and even rich for the resident
of a village, he was naturally looked up to and credited with a worldly
sagacity far beyond what he actually possessed.

At any rate, he may be considered the magnate of Norton. Occasionally he
visited New York, and had been very much annoyed to find that his rural
importance did not avail him there, and that he was treated with no
sort of deference by those whom he had occasion to meet. Somehow, the
citizens of the commercial metropolis never suspected for a single
moment that he was a great man.

When Squire Pope had finished his letter, he took h