“Mother,” interrupted Fanny in a thin, sharp voice, quite unlike her own, “you know Jim always comes home to his dinner.”

“Well, what if he does; I was speaking for the rest of th’ women,” said Mrs. Dodge.  “I’m sure it’s very kind of Miss Orr to think of such a thing as cooking a hot dinner for all those hungry men.”

Mrs. Dodge had received a second check from the assignees that very morning from the sale of the old bank building, and she was proportionately cheerful and content.

“Well; if this isn’t handsome!” cried Mrs. Dix, pausing in the hall to look about her.  “I declare I’d forgotten how it used to look.  This is certainly better than having an old ruin standing here.  But, of course it brings back old days.”

She sighed, her dark, comely face clouding with sorrow.

“You know,” she went on, turning confidentially to Lydia, “that dreadful bank failure was the real cause of my poor husband’s death.  He never held up his head after that.  They suspected at first he was implicated in the steal.  But Mr. Dix wasn’t anything like Andrew Bolton.  No; indeed!  He wouldn’t have taken a cent that belonged to anybody else—­not if he was to die for it!”

“That’s so,” confirmed Mrs. Dodge.  “What Andrew Bolton got was altogether too good for him.  Come right down to it, he wasn’t no better than a murderer!”

And she nodded her head emphatically.

Fanny and Ellen, who stood looking on, reddened impatiently at this: 

“I’m sick and tired of hearing about Andrew Bolton,” complained Ellen.  “I’ve heard nothing else since I can remember.  It’s a pity you bought this house, Miss Orr:  I heard Mr. Elliot say it was like stirring up a horrid, muddy pool.  Not very complimentary to Brookville; but then—­”

“Don’t you think people will—­forget after a while?” asked Lydia, her blue eyes fixed appealingly on the two young faces.  “I don’t see why everybody should—­”

“Well, if you’d fixed the house entirely different,” said Mrs. Dix.  “But having it put back, just as it was, and wanting the old furniture and all—­whatever put that into your head, my dear?”

“I heard it was handsome and old—­I like old things.  And, of course, it was—­more in keeping to restore the house as it was, than to—­”

“Well, I s’pose that’s so,” conceded Mrs. Dodge, her quick dark eyes busy with the renovated interior.  “I’d sort of forgot how it did look when the Boltons was livin’ here.  But speaking of furniture; I see Mrs. Judge Fulsom let you have the old sofa.  I remember she got it at the auction; she’s kept it in her parlor ever since.”

“Yes,” said Lydia.  “I was only too happy to give a hundred dollars for the sofa.  It has been excellently preserved.”

“A hundred dollars!” echoed Mrs. Dix.  “Well!”

Mrs. Dodge giggled excitedly, like a young girl.

“A hundred dollars!” she repeated.  “Well, I want to know!”