only jest in case he does, you
know. I'm sure you deserve it all. You've helped him with the best of
advice. And you've been kind to me when I was in trouble. And you've
been like a grandfather" [Master Gridley winced,--why could n't the
woman have said father?--that grand struck his ear like a spade
going into the gravel] "to those babes, poor little souls! left on my
door-step like a couple of breakfast rolls,--only you know it's the
baker left then. I believe in you, Mr. Gridley, as I believe in my Maker
and in Father Pemberton,--but, poor man, he's old, and you won't be old
these twenty years yet."

[Master Gridley shook his head as if to say that was n't so, but felt
comforted and refreshed.]

"You've got to help Myrtle Hazard again. You brought her home when she
come so nigh drowning. You got the old doctor to go and see her when she
come so nigh being bewitched with the magnetism and nonsense, whatever
they call it, and the young doctor was so nigh bein' crazy, too. I know,
for Nurse Byloe told me all about it. And now Myrtle's gettin' run away
with by that pesky Minister Stoker. Cynthy Badlam was here yesterday
crying and sobbing as if her heart would break about it. For my part, I
did n't think Cynthy cared so much for the girl as all that, but I saw
her takin' on dreadfully with my own eyes. That man's like a hen-hawk
among the chickens, first he picks up one, and then he picks up another.
I should like to know if nobody but young folks has souls to be saved,
and specially young women!"

"Tell me all you know about Myrtle Hazard and Joseph Bellamy Stoker,"
said Master Gridley.

Thereupon that good lady related all that Miss Badlam had imparted to
her, of which the reader knows the worst, being the interview of which
the keen spinster had been a witness, having followed them for the
express purpose of knowing, in her own phrase, what the minister was up
to.

It is not to be supposed that Myrtle had forgotten the discreet kindness
of Master Gridley in bringing her back and making the best of her
adventure. He, on his part, had acquired a kind of right to consider
himself her adviser, and had begun to take a pleasure in the thought
that he, the worn-out and useless old pedant, as he had been in the way
of considering himself, might perhaps do something even more important
than his previous achievement to save this young girl from the dangers
that surrounded her. He loved his classics and his old books; he t