ling to the table for support, and
finally to resume his seat. His jolly face went crimson, and the tears
chased each other down his fat cheeks. When he seemed to have had
his laugh quite out, and sat gasping and mopping his eyes with his
shirt-sleeve, a chance look at Rachel reinspired the passion of his
mirth, and he laughed anew until he had to clip his wide ribs with his
palms as if to hold himself together. A mere gleam of surprise crossed
the scorn and anger of Rachel's face as she watched him, but it faded
quickly, and when once it had passed her expression remained unchanged.

"Good-morning, Aunt Rachel," cried Ruth's fresh voice. "You are early."
Rachel turned briskly round in time to see Ruth disappear from a
white-curtained upper window. Fuller rose with a face of sudden
sobriety, and began once more to mop his eyes. In a mere instant Ruth
appeared at the door running towards the pair with a face all smiles.
"Why, father," she cried, kissing the old man on the cheek, "what
a laugh! You haven't laughed so for a year. What is the joke, Aunt
Rachel?"

She saw at a glance that, whatever the jest might be, Aunt Rachel was no
sharer in it.

"I know of no joke, Niece Ruth," said the old lady, with mincing
iciness.

"Theer's summat serious at the bottom on it, but the joke's atop, plain
for annybody to see," said Fuller. "But Miss Bly the's come here this
mornin' of a funny sort of a arrant, to my thinking, though her seems to
fancy it's as solemn a business as a burying."

"What is the matter?" asked Ruth, looking from one to the other. Some
movement of Rachel's eyes sent hers to the table, and she recognized her
own letter in a flash. She moved instinctively and laid her hand upon
it.

"That's it," said her father, with a new gurgle. "'Twas your Aunt
Rachel, my dear," he explained, "as see you put it somewheer last night,
an' took care on it for you." Ruth turned upon the little old lady
with a grand gesture, in which both hands were suddenly drawn down and
backward until they were clinched together, crushing the letter between
them behind her. "Her comes to me this morning," pursued Fuller, while
the old woman and the young one looked at each other, "an' tells me
plump an' plain as her wants t' open this letter and read it, along with
me."

"Aunt Rachel!" said Ruth, with a sort of intense quiet, "how dare you?"

"I did nothing but my duty," said Rachel. "If I have exposed to you the
character of these m