o get himself excited.

"What's the matter with the people?" she said wearily. "Can it be
possible that anything's the matter with the _Eagle_? Mary Ogden said
she'd taken the very best editorials from the city papers."

The _Inquirer_ was nowhere that Thursday, and the excitement over the
_Eagle_ increased all the afternoon.

[Illustration: _Just out_.]

"It's all right, Mrs. Murdoch," said Jack, at supper. "Bones says he
has sold more than two hundred extra copies."

"I'm glad of that," she said, "and I'll tell Mr. Murdoch; but he
mustn't read it."

When she did so, he smiled faintly and with an effort feebly responded:

"Thank Mary for me. I suppose they wanted to read about the flood."

Mr. Bones had not seen fit to report to Mary that a baker's dozen of
old subscribers had ordered their paper stopped; nor that one angry man
with a big club in his hand had inquired for the editor; nor that
Deacon Abrams, and the Town Constable, and three other men, and a
lawyer had called to see the editor about the robbery at Mrs.
McNamara's; nor that the same worthy woman, with her arms akimbo and
her bonnet falling back, had fiercely demanded of him:

"Fwhat for did yez print all that about me howlin'? Wudn't ony woman
spake, was she bein' robbed and murdhered?"

Bones had pacified Mrs. McNamara only by sitting still and hearing her
out, and he would not for anything have mentioned it to Miss Ogden.
She therefore had only good news to tell at the house, and Mrs.
Murdoch's replies related chiefly to the Union Church Sociable at Judge
Edwards's.

"Mr. Murdoch is quiet," she said, "and he may sleep all the time we're
gone."

"I'll be on hand to look out for him," said Jack, "I'm not going
anywhere."

That reassured them as to leaving home, and Mrs. Murdoch and Mary
departed without anxiety; but they had hardly entered the Edwards's
house before they found that many other people were very much less
placid.

The first person to come forward, after Mrs. Edwards had welcomed them,
was Miss Glidden.

"Oh, Mary Ogden!" she exclaimed, very sweetly and benevolently. "My
dear! Why did you say so much about me in the _Eagle_?"

"That was Mr. Murdoch's work," said Mary. "I had nothing to do with
it."

"And that robbery and escape was really shocking."

"Exactly!" They heard a sharp, decided voice near them, and it came
from a thin little man in a white cravat. "You are right, Elder
Holloway! When a leading j