"Send a bright young man, some one that'll nose around and find out everything. John's proud, and he may be poor, and I want to know jest how he's fixed; and I don't want him to feel that any one's inquiring into his affairs, 'cause then he'd shut up like a clam and I couldn't find out nothin'. Send some one with sense. Hadn't you better go yourself?" Mr. Thornton laughed. "That's the first compliment you ever gave me, Miss Doane; but I don't think it is necessary that I go myself. I have a very clever young man in the office who will do better than I would." "Well, have him go at once. Can't he start to-night?" "I don't think that is necessary either. He'd better wait until I give him all the details. But I'll start him off the first thing in the morning. Now you rest happy, and in a few days you'll know all about it." Drusilla passed the days impatiently waiting for the return of the man from Ohio. Finally he arrived and Mr. Thornton brought him to see her. Drusilla sat in her high-backed chair. "Well, begin!" she said impatiently. "I'm nigh as curious as a girl." The young clerk drew a bundle of papers from his pocket. "I found out as much as I could regarding the present circumstances of John Brierly. He is--" "What does he look like?" interrupted Drusilla. "I ain't seen him for mor'n forty years. Is he old lookin'? Is he sick?" The young man smiled at her impatience. "I should call him a singularly well preserved man for his years." "That sounds as if he was apple-sass, or somethin' to eat. What does he look like? Is he stoop-shoulderd?" "Not at all. He is a tall, spare man, with white hair and a gray Vandyke beard." "What's a Vandyke beard? You mean whiskers?" "Yes; whiskers trimmed to a point--rather aristocratic looking." "John always was a gentleman and looked it. Is he well lookin'?" "Yes, he was in the best of health." "Is he--is he--married?" "No; he never married." Drusilla was quiet for a moment, her eyes seeing beyond the men to the lover who had remained true to her throughout the years. "Does he live alone?" "He has two rooms in the home of some people with whom he has lived for a great many years." "Is he in business?" "No; he was in business until the panic of 1893, when he lost his business." "What does he live on? Is he poor?" "He saved a little out of the wreck of his business and lives on that." "How much has he?" "I think he has about five hundred dollars a year; just enough to keep him modestly in that little town." "Does he seem happy? Did you talk with him?" "Yes; I visited with him all of one afternoon. He does not seem unhappy, but he is a lonely old man. All of his friends are gone and he leads a lonely life." "What does he do?" "He has his books." "Yes; John always loved books. They used to say that if he'd attend to business more and books less, he'd git along better." The clerk laughed.