cature age
and decrepitude by attempting to convey. "Look here--there is one thing
more. Not a dollar to that scoundrel, Richard!--not a dollar, if he
starves!"

"Not a dollar, Uncle; I promise you this, solemnly." And this promise,
too, he meant to keep, beyond a question.

"And, Egbert, keep Mary away from him. Don't let him even see her if you
can avoid it. They used to be together a great deal, and I don't know--I
don't know!" What the old man did not know, must remain among the other
mysteries not yet to be revealed. "Keep her away from him--don't let her
go near him."

Though there were words in this last sentence of his Uncle's which did
not entirely please the Colonel, yet there were others which did please
him thoroughly. He made the third promise with the same alacrity. How
easy the old man was making his path! To keep the property in the family
(that meant, to keep it himself!) to give Richard no part of it under
any circumstances (a thing not very likely)--and to keep his young wife
from the presence of a man from whom he had only won her by the basest
falsehood (a thing he was certain to do at all events)--these were the
three injunctions: how easy to fulfil! The cup of the young man's
content was at that moment brimming over, and the impudent chanticleer
who only five minutes before had tortured him from the garden palings,
was quite forgotten.

Just then there was a light foot-fall on the piazza behind the two
speakers. The dulled senses of John Crawford were too dim to recognize
it, but the keener faculties of the Colonel heard the beat of the little
foot at once and knew it to be Mary's. He was just opening his mouth to
say to his uncle, "Here is Mary, now!" when he caught a glimpse of her
face; and then he remained gazing and said nothing. Mary had returned
from her walk, had thrown off her bonnet, and stepped out to the piazza
to look after the comfort of her father, and perhaps for some other
purpose. She was at that moment just outside the door, and from the
position of the Colonel, framed between the pillars at the other end of
the piazza and against the dark green foliage of an arborvitae standing
beyond. What was it that the quick eye of the Colonel saw, as he turned,
that stopped the words upon his lips and made him look in silence on the
young girl's face and figure? She had been absent from the house less
than an hour--what could have occurred to her, within that space of
time, to change