d; but Penn
spoke.

"I am very weak, and very ill, madam. But I have learned what it is to
be driven from a door that should be opened to welcome me; and I am not
willing, under any circumstances, to treat another as you last night
treated me."

This was spoken to the lady's face; for Toby, seeing that concealment
was at an end, had slipped the bolt, and she had come in.

"Wal! now! Mr. Hapgood!" she began, with a simper, which betrayed a
little contrition and a good deal of crafty selfishness,--"you mustn't
go to bein' too hard on me for that. Consider that I'm a poor widder,
and my life war threatened, and I _had_ to do as I did."

"Well, well," said Penn, "I certainly forgive you. Give her a chair,
Toby."

Toby placed the chair, and widow Sprowl sat down.

"I couldn't be easy--old friends so--till I had come over to see how you
be," she said, folding her hands, and regarding Penn with a solemn
pucker of solicitude. "I know, 'twas a dreadful thing; but it's some
comfort to think it's nothing I'm any ways to blame fur. It's hard
enough for me to lose a boarder, jest at this time,--say nothing about a
friend that's been jest like one of my own family, and that I've cooked,
and washed, and ironed fur, as if he war my own son!"

And Mrs. Sprowl wiped her eyes, while she carefully watched the effect
of her words.

"I acknowledge, you have cooked, washed, and ironed for me very
faithfully," said Penn.

"And I thought," said she,--"old friends so,--may be you wouldn't mind
making me a present of the trifle you've paid over and above what's due
for your board; for I'm a poor widder, as you know, and my only son is a
wanderer on the face of the 'arth."

Penn readily consented to make the present--perhaps reflecting that it
would be equally impossible for him ever to board it out, or get her to
return the money.

"Then there's that old cloak of yourn," said Mrs. Sprowl,
sympathizingly. "I believe you partly promised it to me, didn't you? I
can manage to get me a cape out on't."

"Yes, yes," said Penn, "you can have the cloak;" while Toby glared with
rage behind her chair.

"And I considered 'twouldn't be no more'n fair that you should pay for
the----I don't see how in the world I can afford to lose it, bein' a
poor widder, and live geeses' feathers at that, and my only son----" She
hid her face in her apron, overcome with emotion.

"What am I to pay for?" asked Penn.

"Fur, you know," she said, "I never wou