"There now!" exclaimed Reuben, dropping his pipe in his astonishment; "to think that I had that fact right afore my eyes all my life and never could see it! Well, of all the blind moles and owls, I must a been the blindest! And to think as I was the very first as warned the poor girl agin him at that birthday feast! But, law, arter that I never saw them together agin, no, not once! So I had no cause to s'picion him, no more nor others! Well and now, Ishmael, tell me all how and about it! Long as it was him, Mr. Herman, there must a been something uncommon about it, for I don't believe he'd do anythink dishonorable, not if he knowed it!" "Not if he knew it! You are right there, Uncle Reuben," said Ishmael, who immediately related the tragic story of his parents' marriage, ending with the family wreck that had ruined all their happiness. "Dear me! dear, dear me! what a sorrowful story for all hands, to be sure! Well, Ishmael, whoever was most to be pitied in former times, your father is most to be pitied now. Be good to him," said Reuben. "You may be sure that I will do all that I can to comfort my father, Uncle Reuben. And now a word to you! Speak of this matter to me alone whenever you like; or to Aunt Hannah alone whenever you like; but to no others; and not even to us when we are together! for I cannot bear that this old tragic history should become the subject of general conversation." "I know, Ishmael, my boy, I know! Mum's the word!" said Reuben. And the entrance of Hannah at that moment put an end to the conversation. There was one subject upon which Ishmael felt a little uneasiness-- the dread of meeting Claudia. He knew that she was not expected at Tanglewood until the first of October; for so the judge had informed him in a letter that he had received the very night before he left Washington. And this was only the first of September; and he intended to give himself but two weeks' holiday and to be back at his office by the fourteenth at farthest, full sixteen days before the expected arrival of Lord and Lady Vincent at Tanglewood. Yet this dread of meeting Claudia haunted him. His love was dead; but as he had told Bee, it had died hard and rent his heart in its death-struggles, and that heart was sore to the touch of her presence. The judge's letter wherein he had spoken of the date of his daughter and son-in-law's visit had been written several days previous to this evening, and since that, news might have come from them, speaking of some change of plan, involving an earlier visit. These Ishmael felt were the mere chimeras of imagination. Still he thought he would inquire concerning the family at Tanglewood. "They are all well up at the house, I hope, Uncle Reuben?" he asked. "Famous! And having everything shined up bright as a new shilling, in honor of the arrival of my lord and my lady, who are expected, come first o' next mont'." "On the first of October? Are you sure?"