xcept the courage to commit it. He wished the Bath buns might
by chance have arsenic in them.

"Mother's zinnies?" said Jacob, pointing to a glass jar of yellow
lozenges that stood in the window. "Zive 'em me."

David dared not do otherwise than reach down the glass jar and give Jacob
a handful. He received them in his smock-frock, which he held out for
more.

"They'll keep him quiet a bit, at any rate," thought David, and emptied
the jar. Jacob grinned and mowed with delight.

"You're very good to this stranger, Mr. Freely," said Letitia; and then
spitefully, as David joined the party at the parlour-door, "I think you
could hardly treat him better, if he was really your brother."

"I've always thought it a duty to be good to idiots," said Mr. Freely,
striving after the most moral view of the subject. "We might have been
idiots ourselves--everybody might have been born idiots, instead of
having their right senses."

"I don't know where there'd ha' been victual for us all then," observed
Mrs. Palfrey, regarding the matter in a housewifely light.

"But let us sit down again and finish our tea," said Mr. Freely. "Let us
leave the poor creature to himself."

They walked into the parlour again; but Jacob, not apparently
appreciating the kindness of leaving him to himself, immediately followed
his brother, and seated himself, pitchfork grounded, at the table.

"Well," said Miss Letitia, rising, "I don't know whether _you_ mean to
stay, mother; but I shall go home."

"Oh, me too," said Penny, frightened to death at Jacob, who had begun to
nod and grin at her.

"Well, I think we _had_ better be going, Mr. Palfrey," said the mother,
rising more slowly.

Mr. Freely, whose complexion had become decidedly yellower during the
last half-hour, did not resist this proposition. He hoped they should
meet again "under happier circumstances."

"It's my belief the man is his brother," said Letitia, when they were all
on their way home.

"Nonsense!" said Mr. Palfrey. "Freely's got no brother--he's said so
many and many a time; he's an orphan; he's got nothing but
uncles--leastwise, one. What's it matter what an idiot says? What call
had Freely to tell lies?"

Letitia tossed her head and was silent.

Mr. Freely, left alone with his affectionate brother Jacob, brooded over
the possibility of luring him out of the town early the next morning, and
getting him conveyed to Gilsbrook without further betrayals. But the