her fifteen cents in change.

That night, soon after the family at Broadstone had retired to their
rooms, Olive knocked at the door of Mrs. Easterfield's chamber.

"Do you know," she exclaimed, when she had been told to enter, "that a
horrible idea has come into my head? Uncle John may have been taken
sick, and that man looked just like a doctor. Old Jane was busy with
uncle, and as the doctor had to wait, he took the toll. Oh, I wish we
had asked! It was cruel in me not to!"

"Now, that is all nonsense," said Mrs. Easterfield. "If anything serious
is the matter with your uncle he most surely would have let you know,
and, besides, both the doctors in Glenford are elderly men. I do not
believe there is the slightest reason for your anxiety. But to make you
feel perfectly satisfied, I will send a man to Glenford early in the
morning. I want to send there anyway."

"But I would not like my uncle to think that I was trying to find out
anything he did not care to tell me," said Olive.

"Oh, don't trouble yourself about that," answered Mrs. Easterfield. "I
will instruct the man. He need not ask any questions at the toll-gate.
But when he gets to Glenford he can find out everything about that
young man without asking any questions. He is a very discreet person.
And I am also a discreet person," she added, "and you shall have no
connection with my messenger's errand."

After breakfast the next morning Mrs. Easterfield took Olive aside. "My
man has returned," she said; "he tells me that Captain Asher took the
toll, and was smoking his pipe in perfect health. He also saw the young
man, and his natural curiosity prompted him to ask about him in the
town. He heard that he is the son of one of the captain's old shipmates
who is making him a visit. Now I hope this satisfies you."

"Satisfies me!" exclaimed Olive. "I should have been a great deal better
satisfied if I had heard he was sick, provided it was nothing dangerous.
I think my uncle is treating me shamefully. It is not that I care a snap
about his visitor, one way or another, but it is his want of confidence
in me that hurts me. Could he have supposed I should have wanted to stay
with him if I had known a young man was coming?"

"Well, my dear," said Mrs. Easterfield, "I can not send anybody to find
out what he supposed. But I am as certain as I can be certain of
anything that there is nothing at all in this bugbear you have conjured
up. No doubt the young man dropped