u were going to Florida for a couple of months."

"I started with that intention, but on reaching Charleston I changed my
mind. I expected to find some friends at St. Augustine, but I learned
that they were already returning to the North, and I felt that I should
be lonely and decided to return. I am very glad I did, now. Did you
receive my letter?"

"Your letter?" queried Philip, looking at Mr. Carter in surprise.

"Certainly. I gave Alonzo a letter for you, which I had directed to your
boarding-house, and requested him to mail it. It contained a ten-dollar
bill."

"I never received any such letter, sir. It would have been of great
service to me--the money, I mean; for I have found it hard to live on
five dollars a week. Now I have not even that."

"Is it possible that Alonzo could have suppressed the letter?" said Mr.
Carter to himself.

"At any rate I never received it."

"Here is something else to inquire into," said Mr. Carter. "If Alonzo
has tampered with my letter, perhaps appropriated the money, it will be
the worse for him."

"I hardly think he would do that, sir; though I don't like him."

"You are generous; but I know the boy better than you do. He is fond of
money, not for the sake of spending it, but for the sake of hoarding it.
Tell me, then, how did you learn that I had gone to Florida?"

"I learned it at the house in Twelfth Street."

"Then you called there?"

"Yes, sir; I called to see you. I found it hard to get along on my
salary, and I did not want Mrs. Forbush to lose by me, so I----"

"Mrs. Forbush?" repeated the old gentleman quickly. "That name sounds
familiar to me."

"Mrs. Forbush is your niece," said Phil, a hope rising in his heart that
he might be able to do his kind landlady a good turn.

"Did she tell you that?"

"No, sir; that is, I was ignorant of it until I met her just as I was
going away from Mrs. Pitkin's."

"Did she call there, too--to see me?" asked the old gentleman.

"Yes, sir; but she got a very cold reception. Mrs. Pitkin was very rude
to her, and said that you were so much prejudiced against her that she
had better not call again."

"That's like her cold selfishness. I understand her motives very well. I
had no idea that Mrs. Forbush was in the city. Is she--poor?"

"Yes, sir; she is having a hard struggle to maintain herself and her
daughter."

"And you board at her house?"

"Yes, sir."

"How strangely things come about! She is as nearly related