She had dropped insensible upon the floor, where the housemaid found her a few minutes later. Her mother had missed her father, and was making inquiries for him when the message came through the ‘phone, bringing alarm and dismay and an insight into some things which had seemed strange of late. It did not take long to restore Louie to consciousness, and in a few minutes she was on her wheel, speeding away to the bank, where she felt her father was. On her way she passed the White House, and glanced towards it with a thought of Herbert, and what he would say and do, and with a thought, too, of Fred Lansing on the ocean that summer day, with no suspicion of what was transpiring in Merivale. This she did not know, as she had not heard what the judge said to Herbert when he gave him Fred’s letter the day before. The village was thoroughly roused by this time, and the country, too. No one could tell who carried it, but the news had reached Godfrey Sheldon, as he was washing himself in a tin basin by the well, and thinking what a hot day it was going to be for him to drive to an adjoining town to pay for some oxen and a Jersey cow, the money for which he must get from Grey’s Bank. To say that he swore is putting it mildly, and between his swearing and excitement he emptied the tin basin into the well and finished his ablutions in the pail of water drawn for the house. He called himself a fool for leaving so much in the bank as he ran his horse into town, hoping against hope, and finding that the worst had happened when he saw the notice on the door and the crowd in the street. “Heavens and earth!” he exclaimed, clutching first one and then another. “How much do you s’pose he’ll pay on the dollar? or be we tee-totally swamped?” Nobody answered him. Nobody knew. Each was intent upon himself, and Nancy Sharp was the most intent of all. She had heard the news in White’s Row, where as usual on Monday morning she was busy over her washtub. For a moment she seemed paralyzed, and stood with her mouth wide open and a wet towel dangling high in the air and dripping up her arms and down to the floor. Then she started for the scene of action, outrunning every one who joined her. If she was excited at the great run, she was now a howling hyena, threatening to tear out Grey’s heart if she could get at him. “All my savings in hard, round silver dollars gone, and wasn’t it only Saturday I put in the last, and he took it—the wretch, knowin’ he was busted!” she said, and this was the plaint of three or four more who had hurried to place their money with the man they trusted, and for whom now there were not names bad enough. Even Louie, the favorite of the town, was greeted with a low hiss from some quarter as she rode into their midst and, dismounting, said: “Hasn’t father appeared? He must be in the bank. Open the door, somebody.” She looked helplessly round, while many voices cried: