“I suspicioned there was somethin’ up,” she declared. “He’s been nervous and uneasy for over a fortni’t. And cranky--my soul! He was like a dog with one flea, you never could tell the place he’d snap at next. Varunas noticed it too, of course, and he was consider’ble worried about it. Honest, I cal’late Varunas was beginnin’ to be afraid that your uncle was losin’ his mind or somethin’. ‘He’s touched in the head, I do believe,’ he said. ‘If he ain’t why does he allow that grandson of ’Lisha Cook’s to come here so twice a week reg’lar? A Cook don’t belong in this house and you know it, Nabby. What is he let come here for?’ “Well, I didn’t know why, of course, but I never see Foster Townsend yet when he didn’t have a reason for doin’ things and I spoke right up and said so. ‘When Cap’n Foster gets ready to put that Griffin boy out he’ll do it,’ I told him. ‘You say yourself the cap’n don’t act natural these days. Well, maybe there’s the reason. Probably he don’t really like that young feller’s ringin’ our front doorbell any better than you do, and he’s just waitin’ for a good excuse to tell him so.’ That’s what I said, but I wan’t so terrible satisfied with _what_ I said and Varunas he was less satisfied than I was. “‘Hugh!’ says he, disgusted. ‘When I see Foster Townsend waitin’ for an excuse to do what he wants to, then I won’t guess he’s gone crazy, I’ll _know_ it. When he sets out to tell the President of the United States, or the minister, or Judas Iscariot, or anybody else, to go to Tophet he tells ’em so and then thinks up the excuse afterwards. You bet he ain’t actin’ natural! Nabby Gifford, if Foster Townsend don’t need a doctor, or a keeper or somethin’, then I do. This kind of goin’s on is too much for _me_!’” Having contributed this conversational gem from the Gifford family treasury, Nabby paused. Possibly she expected Esther to offer some explanation of the Griffin visits. If so she was disappointed, for Esther said nothing. Nabby picked up a fork from the breakfast table and then put it down again. “Well, anyhow,” she continued, “be that as it will or must, as the sayin’ is, your uncle has acted queer for quite a spell and ’twan’t until this very mornin’ that he give me the least hint of why he was doin’ it. When he told me no longer than twenty minutes ago, that he had been layin’ his plans for you to go over to live along with them--er--heathen in foreign lands--when he told me you was goin’ and he was goin’ to stay here to home alone--I got my answer, or part of it anyhow. The poor soul is about crazy with lonesomeness at the very idea. That’s what ails him. Are you really truly goin’ to go, Esther?” Esther nodded. “Uncle says I must,” she replied. “He wants me to go on with my singing and my music and he can’t go himself--at present.” She went on to tell of the proposed trip, of Mrs. Carter, and the details as she had been told them by Townsend.