“Just as I feared when that rector told me who his father was,” he thought, cursing the chance which had sent the Rev. Arthur Mason to Crompton,—­cursing the Rev. Charles for giving information to Jake,—­and cursing Jake for the letter, which he spurned with his well foot, as it lay on the floor.  He had hoped the negro might be dead, as he had heard nothing from him in a long time; and here he was, alive and waiting for a word to come.  “If he waits for that he will wait to all eternity,” he said to himself.  “I shall write and make it worth his while to stay where he is.  He knows too much of Amy’s birth and her mother’s death to be trusted here.  Uncertainty is better than the truth.  I have made matters right for Amy, and confessed everything.  They’ll find it when I’m gone, and can wag their tongues all they please.  It won’t hurt me then, but while I live I’ll keep up the farce.  It might have been better to have told the truth at first, but I didn’t, and it’s too late now.  Who in thunder is that knocking at the door?  Not Amy, I hope,—­and I can’t reach that letter,” he continued, as there came a low rap at the door.

“Come in!” he called, when it was repeated, and Cora, the housemaid, entered.

She had been in the family but a few days and did not yet understand her duties with regard to the Colonel, and know that she was not to trouble him.  Tim Biggs had been commissioned by Eloise to take her note to Mrs. Amy, together with the chairs.

“You can’t carry both at one time, so take the sea this morning, and the wheel this afternoon,” Mrs. Biggs said, just as Tom Walker appeared.

He had been to the house two or three times since the Rummage, ostensibly to ask when Eloise was going to commence her duties as teacher, but really to see her and hear her pleasant “Good-morning, Thomas, I am glad to see you.”

Whatever Mrs. Biggs knew was soon known to half of District No. 5, and the news that Eloise was going to California had reached Tom, and brought him to inquire if it were true.

“And won’t you come back?” he asked, with real concern on his homely face.

“Perhaps so.  I hope so,” Eloise replied, and he continued, “I’m all-fired sorry you are goin’, because,—­well, because I am; and I wish I could do something for you.”

“You can,” Eloise said.  “You can take the wheel chair back to the Crompton House and save Tim one journey.”

Tom cared very little about saving Tim, but he would do anything to serve Eloise, and the two boys were soon on their way, quarrelling some as they went, for each was jealous of the other’s attention to the “little schoolmarm,” as they called her.  Tom reached the house first, but Tim was not far behind, and both encountered Cora, who bade them leave the chairs in the hall, while she inquired as to their disposition.  Had Peter been in sight she might have consulted him, but he was in the grounds, and, entering the Colonel’s room she said, “If you please, sir, what shall I do with the chairs?”