"Nothing, only seeing him just now set me to wondering if you were still of the same mind about it." "If being willing that Lucina should have the man she sets her heart on is the same mind, of course I am; but, good Lord, Jack, that's all over! He hasn't been to the house for a year, and Lucina never thinks of him!" Colonel Lamson laughed wheezily. "Well, that's all I wanted to know, Eben." "What made you ask me that?" asked the Squire, suspiciously. "Nothing; seeing Jerome and his mill brought it to mind. Well, I'll be along to-night." "That's all over," the Squire called out again to the Colonel, going slowly up the hill to the house door. However, when he got home, he questioned Abigail. "I haven't heard Lucina mention Jerome Edwards's name for months," said she, "and he never comes here; but she seems perfectly contented and happy. I think that's all over." "I thought so," said Eben. Abigail was preparing the punch, for the Squire expected his friends that evening. Jennings came first; some time after Means and Lamson arrived. They had a strange air of grave excitement and elation. When the game of cards was fairly under way, the Colonel played in a manner which confused them all. "By the Lord Harry, Jack, this is the third time you've thrown away an honor!" the Squire roared out, finally. "Is it the punch that's gone to your head?" "No, Eben," replied the Colonel, in a hoarse voice, with solemn and oratorical cadences, as if he rose to address a meeting. "It is not the punch. I am _used_ to punch. It is money. I've just had word that--that old mining stock I bought when I was in the service, and haven't thought worth more than a New England sheep farm, has been sold for sixty-five thousand dollars." Chapter XXXIV The next week Colonel Lamson went to Boston, and took his friend John Jennings with him. Whether the trip was purely a business one, or was to be regarded in the light of a celebration of the Colonel's good fortune, never transpired. Upham people exchanged wishes to the effect that John Jennings and Colonel Lamson might not take, in their old age, to sowing again the wild oats of their youth. "John Jennings drank himself most into his grave; an' as for Colonel Lamson, it's easy enough to see that he's always had his dram, when he felt like it. If they get home sober an' alive with all that money, they're lucky," people said. It was the general impression in Upham that the Colonel had gone to Boston with his sixty-five thousand dollars in his pocket. Lawyer Means's ancient relative, who served as house-keeper, was reported to have confessed that she was on tenter-hooks about it.