He drew from his portemonnaie a five-dollar greenback, as he spoke, and offered it to Mrs. Payson.

“Are you in airnest?” inquired the old lady dubiously.

“Quite so.”

“You ain’t robbin’ yourself, be you?” asked Mrs. Payson, with a look of subdued eagerness lighting up her wrinkled face.

“Oh, no; I can spare it perfectly well.”

“Then I’ll take it,” she responded, in evident gratification, “an’ I’m sure I’m much obleeged to you.  I’m free to confess that you’re a gentleman sech as I don’t often meet with.  I wouldn’t take it on no account, only the loss is considerable for me, and Cynthy Ann, she would have been disapp’inted if so be as I hadn’t worn the bunnit.  I’d like to know who it is that I’m so much obligated to.”

Henry Morton drew a card from his card-case and handed it with a bow to Mrs. Payson.

“What’s that?” asked the old lady.

“My card.”

“Le’s see, where’s my specs?” said Mrs. Payson, fumbling in her pocket.  “Oh, I’ve got ’em on.  So your name’s Herod.  What made ’em call you that?”

“Henry, madam—­Henry Morton.”

“Well, so ’tis, I declare.  You ain’t related to Nahum Morton, of Gilead, be you; he that was put into the State’s prison for breakin’ open the Gilead Bank?”

An amused smile overspread the young man’s face.

“I never had any relatives sent to the State’s prison,” he answered; “though I think it quite possible that some of them may have deserved it.”

“Jest so,” assented the old lady.  “There’s a good deal of iniquity that never comes to light.  I once know’d a woman that killed her husband with the tongs, and nobody ever surmised it; though everybody thought it strange that he should disappear so suddint.  Well, this woman on her death-bed owned up to the tongs in a crazy fit that she had.  But the most cur’us part of it,” the old lady added rather illogically, “was, that the man was livin’ all the while, and it was all his wife’s fancy that she’d struck him with the tongs.”

By this time the “express” had rumbled into the main street of Rossville, and the old lady had hardly completed her striking illustration of the truth, that murder will out, before they had drawn up in front of the tavern.

“Ain’t you a-goin’ to carry me to my darter’s house?” she inquired with solicitude.  “I can’t walk noway.”

“Yes, ma’am, ’ answered Ajax, “directly, just as soon as this gentleman’s got out, and they’ve taken the mail.”

He tossed the mail-bag to a small boy who stood on the piazza in waiting to receive it, and then, whipping up his horses, speedily conveyed Mrs. Payson to her destination.

“He’s a very nice, obleeging young man,” said the old lady, referring to Henry Morton.  “I wonder ef his mother was a Bent.  There’s old Micajah Bent’s third daughter, Roxana Jane, married a Morton, or it might have been a Moulton.  Ever see him afore?”