straight face, as when Jacobs came to him this spring, and said he was going to marry old Miser Jerrold’s daughter.  He wanted to quit father’s employ, and he thanked him in a real manly way for the manner in which he had always treated him.  Well, Jacobs left, and mother says that father would sit and speculate about him, as to whether he had fallen in love with Eliza Jerrold, or whether he was determined to regain possession of the box, and was going to do it honestly, or whether he was sorry for having frightened the old man into a greater degree of imbecility, and was marrying the girl so that he could take care of him, or whether it was something else, and so on, and so on.  He had a dozen theories, and then mother says he would burst out laughing, and say it was one of the cutest tricks that he had ever heard of.

“In the end, Jacobs got married, and father and mother went to the wedding.  Father gave the bridegroom a yoke of oxen, and mother gave the bride a lot of household linen, and I believe they’re as happy as the day is long.  Jacobs makes his wife comb her hair, and he waits on the old man as if he was his son, and he is improving the farm that was going to rack and ruin, and I hear he is going to build a new house.”

“Harry,” exclaimed Miss Laura, “can’t you take me to see them?”

“Yes, indeed; mother often drives over to take them little things, and we’ll go, too, sometime.  I’d like to see Jacobs myself, now that he is a decent fellow.  Strange to say, though he hadn’t the best of character, no one has ever suspected him of the robbery, and he’s been cunning enough never to say a word about it.  Father says Jacobs is like all the rest of us.  There’s mixture of good and evil in him, and sometimes one predominates, and sometimes the other.  But we must get on and not talk here all day.  Get up, Fleetfoot.”

“Where did you say we were going?” asked Miss Laura, as we crossed the bridge over the river.

“A little way back here in the woods,” he replied.  “There’s an Englishman on a small clearing that he calls Penhollow.  Father loaned him some money three years ago, and he won’t pay either interest or principal.”

“I think I’ve heard of him,” said Miss Laura “Isn’t he the man whom the boys call Lord Chesterfield?”

“The same one.  He’s a queer specimen of a man.  Father has always stood up for him.  He has a great liking for the English.  He says we ought to be as ready to help an Englishman as an American, for we spring from common stock.”

“Oh, not Englishmen only,” said Miss Laura, warmly; “Chinamen, and Negroes, and everybody.  There ought to be a brotherhood of nations, Harry.”

“Yes, Miss Enthusiasm, I suppose there ought to be,” and looking up, I could see that Mr. Harry was gazing admiringly into his cousin’s face.

“Please tell me some more about the Englishman,” said Miss Laura.

“There isn’t much to tell.  He lives alone, only coming occasionally to the village for supplies, and though he is poorer than poverty, he despises every soul within a ten-mile radius of him, and looks upon us as no better than an order of thrifty, well-trained lower animals.”