“Good for you!” Jack said, wringing Howard’s hand, while the party began to break up, as it was time for those who lived at a distance to take the train.

Among those who arose to go was the Rev. Arthur Mason, whom Howard had asked to lunch after the burial.  As he left the house he said to Jack, who stood for a moment with him on the piazza, “Please say to Miss Smith that I can direct her to her mother’s birthplace in Florida.  My father is preaching there.”

“Thanks!  I will tell her,” Jack replied, in some surprise, and then went in to where Howard was standing, with an expression on his face not quite such as one ought to have when he has just come into possession of a fortune.

“I congratulate you, old boy,” Jack said cheerily, as he went up to him.

“Don’t!” Howard answered impetuously.  “Nothing is sure.  A will may be found, or my uncle’s marriage proved; in either case, I sink back into the cipher I was before.  I cannot say I’m not glad to have money, but I don’t want people blaming me.  I can’t help it if my uncle made no will and did not marry Amy’s mother, and I don’t believe he did, or why was he silent so many years?”

Jack could not answer him and left the room, taking his way, he hardly knew why, to the village, where he fell in again with the rector.  To talk of the recent events at the Crompton House was natural, and before they parted Jack knew the contents of the Rev. Charles’s letter to his son, and in his mind there was no doubt of a secret marriage and Amy’s legitimacy.

“It will be hard on Howard,” he thought, “but Amy ought to have her rights,—­and,—­Eloise!  And she shall!” he added, as he retraced his steps to the Crompton House.

Chancing to be alone with her, he told her in part what he had heard from the rector, keeping back everything pertaining to the poverty of the surroundings, and speaking mostly of Jakey and Mandy Ann, whom Amy might remember.

“She does,” Eloise replied, “and at every mention of them her brain seems to get clearer.  Peter has brought me a copy of a letter which Col.  Crompton received from Jake just before he went for my mother, and which he has kept all these years.  It may help me to find whatever there is to be found, good or bad.”  She handed him the copy, and continued, “The letter was mailed in Palatka, but from what you tell me, Jakey is farther up the river.  Shall I have any trouble in finding him, do you think?”

“None whatever,” Jack replied, a plan rapidly maturing in his mind as to what he would do if Eloise persisted in going to Florida.  “Better leave your mother here,” he said, when she told him of her determination to unravel the mystery.

“No,” she answered.  “Mother must go.  I expect much from a sight of her old home and Jakey.”

Jack shivered as he recalled the Rev. Charles Mason’s picture of that home, but he would not enlighten her.  She must guess something from Jakey’s note to the Colonel, he thought.  Evidently she did, for she asked him what a Cracker was.