"Yes, Reuben, the very day you came home, your Pa Ducklow made an investment for your benefit. We didn't mention it,--you know I wouldn't own up to it, though I didn't exactly say the contrary, the morning we was over here"---- "Because," said Ducklow, as she faltered, "we wanted to surprise you; we was keepin' it a secret till the right time, then we was goin' to make it a pleasant surprise to ye." "What in the name of common-sense are you talking about?" cried Reuben, looking from one to the other of the wretched, prevaricating pair. "Cowpon bonds!" groaned Ducklow. "Three thousan'-dollar cowpon bonds! The money had been lent, but I wanted to make a good investment for you, and I thought there was nothin' so good as Gov'ments"---- "That's all right," said Reuben. "Only, if you had money to invest for my benefit, I should have preferred to pay off the mortgage the first thing." "Sartin! sartin!" said Ducklow; "and you could have turned the bonds right in, if you had so chosen, like so much cash. Or you could have drawed your interest on the bonds in gold, and paid the interest on your mortgage in currency, and made so much, as I rather thought you would." "But the bonds?" eagerly demanded Reuben, with trembling hopes, just as Miss Beswick, with her shawl over her head, entered the room. "We was jest telling about our loss, Reuben's loss," said Mrs. Ducklow in a manner which betrayed no little anxiety to conciliate that terrible woman. "Very well! don't let me interrupt." And Miss Beswick, slipping the shawl from her head, sat down. Her presence, stiff and prim and sarcastic, did not tend in the least to relieve Mr. Ducklow from the natural embarrassment he felt in giving his version of Reuben's loss. However, assisted occasionally by a judicious remark thrown in by Mrs. Ducklow, he succeeded in telling a sufficiently plausible and candid-seeming story. "I see! I see!" said Reuben, who had listened with astonishment and pain to the narrative. "You had kinder intentions towards me than I gave you credit for. Forgive me, if I wronged you!" He pressed the hand of his adopted father, and thanked him from a heart filled with gratitude and trouble. "But don't feel so bad about it. You did what you thought best I can only say, the fates are against me." "Hem!" coughing, Miss Beswick stretched up her long neck and cleared her throat "So them bonds you had bought for Reuben was in the house the very night I called!" "Yes, Miss Beswick," replied Mrs. Ducklow; "and that's what made it so uncomfortable to us to have you talk the way you did." "Hem!" The neck was stretched up still farther than before, and the redoubtable throat cleared again. "'Twas too bad! Ye ought to have told me. You'd actooally bought the bonds,--bought 'em for Reuben, had ye?" "Sartin! sartin!" said Ducklow. "To be sure!" said Mrs. Ducklow. "We designed 'em for his benefit, a surprise, when the right time come," said both together.