Then Matty ventured to ask what she and her mother had wondered about once and again,--why these particular bits of paper were so necessary. Surely other vouchers, or certified copies, or books of account could be found somewhere! "Yes! I know; you would say so. And if it were all yesterday, and was all in these lazy times of peace, you would say true. But you see, in the first place, this is ever so long ago. Then, in the second place, it was in the heat of war, when everything was on a gigantic scale, and things had to be done in unheard-of ways. Then, chiefly, this particular business involved the buying up of I do not know who among the Rebels there in Texas, and among their allies on the other side the Rio Grande. This old Spaniard, whom mamma remembers, and whom I just remember, he was the chief captain among the turncoats, and there were two or three others, F. F. men in their places,--"First Family men," that means, you know; but after they did this work they did not stay in their places long. No! papa says he was mighty careful; that he had three of the scoundrels sworn before notaries, or rather before one notary, and had their receipts and acknowledgments stamped with his notary's seal. Still, it did not do to have a word said in public then. And after everything succeeded so perfectly, after the troops landed without a shot, and found all the base ready for them, corn and pork just where they wanted it,--why, then everybody was too gratified to think of imagining, as they do now, that papa had stolen that money that bought the pork and the corn." "I wish they were only half as grateful now," he said, after a pause. "Tom," said Matty, eagerly, "who was that notary?" "I thought of that, too," said Tom. "There is no doubt who it was. It was old Gilbert; you must remember his sign, just below Faulkner's on the avenue. But in the first place, Gilbert died just after our taking Richmond. In the second place, he never knew what the papers were--and he executed twenty such sets of papers every day, very likely. All he could say, at the very best, would be that at such a time father brought in an old Spaniard and two or three other greasers, and that he took their acknowledgments of something." "I do not know that, Tom," said the girl, without flinching at his mannish information. "If notaries in Washington are anything like notaries in novels, that man kept a record or register of his work. If he was not very unlike everybody else who lives and works here, he left a very destitute widow when he died. Tom, I shall go after church and hunt up the Widow Gilbert. I shall ask her for her husband's books, and shall tell her why I want them." The girl dropped her voice and said: "Tom, I shall ask her IN HIS NAME." "God grant it does any good, dear girl," said he. "Far be it from me to say that you shall not try--"