"Indeed I shall," was the emphatic reply, "and of the tea as well. I have a notion she got it all from Robert Jameson. You know what they tell of him; and he and Aunt Penine seem to have a deal to say to one another these days. She has sent Pashar to him with notes ever so many times, as I know; and Pashar seems to have more silver nowadays than father gives him, for he has, more than once, brought 'Bitha sweets from the store."

Mary nodded significantly at the mention of Robert Jameson's name. He was the nearest neighbor of Joseph Devereux, and had come to be regarded with distrust—enmity, indeed—by most of his former associates.

He was a widower of some wealth, and had no family; and Aunt Penine had long been suspected of cherishing a desire to entrap him into a second matrimony.

A few months before, an exceedingly complimentary, almost fulsom. . . Read More