re a bit suaver in
manner might have been in Congress at this minute."

"How old?"

"Thirty, I should say."

"And the girl?"

"Twenty-five, perhaps."

"A mother living?"

"No; there were some strange stories of her having died a year or so
before they came here, under circumstances of a somewhat distressing
nature, but they themselves say nothing about it."

"It seems to me they don't say much about any thing."

"That's just it; they are the most reserved people you ever saw. It
isn't from them we have heard there is another son floating somewhere
about the world. They never speak of him, and what's more, they never
write to him; as who should know better than myself?"

An interruption here occurred, and I took the opportunity to saunter out
into the crowd of idlers always to be found hanging around a country
store at mail-time. My purpose was, as you may conceive, to pick up any
stray bits of information that might be floating about concerning these
Bensons. Not that I had as yet discovered any thing definite connecting
this respectable family with the gang of counterfeiters upon whose
track I had been placed; but business is business, and no clue, however
slight or unpromising in its nature, is to be neglected when the way is
as dark as that which lay before me. With an easy smile, therefore,
calculated to allay apprehension and awaken confidence, I took my stand
among these loungers. But I soon found that I need do nothing to start
the wheel of gossip on the subject of the Bensons. It was already going,
and that with a force and spirit that almost took my breath away.

"A fancy ball!" were the first words I heard. "The Bensons give a fancy
ball, when they never had three persons at a time in their house
before!"

"Yes, and what's more, they are going to have folks over from Clayton
and Lawrence and Hollowell and devil knows where. It's to be a smash up,
a regular fandango, with masks and all that kind of nonsense."

"They say Miss Carrie teased her father till he had to give in in
self-defence. It's her birthday or something like that, and she _would_
have a party."

"But such a party! who ever heard the like in a respectable town like
this! It's wicked, that's what I call it, downright wicked to cover up
the face God has given you and go strutting around in clothes a
Christian man might well think borrowed from the Evil One if he had to
wear them in any decent company. All wrong, I say, all wrong, a