d raved over it.
You'd think that tumble-down shack was a hunk out of paradise; Adam and
Eve's place in the Garden was a short lobster 'longside of it. Then, he
said, he was took down with an incurable disease. He tried and tried to
get along, but 'twas no go. He mortgaged the shanty to a grasping money
lender--meanin' Poundberry--and that money was spent. Then his sister
passed away and his heart broke; so they took him to the poorhouse.

"Miss Lamont," says he, "good-by. Sometimes in the midst of your
fashionable career, in your gayety and so forth, pause," he says, "and
give a thought to the broken-hearted pauper who has told you his life
tragedy."

Well, now, you take a green girl, right fresh from novels and music
lessons, and spring that on her--what can you expect? Mabel, she cried
and took on dreadful.

"Oh, Mr. Blueworthy!" says she, grabbing his hand. "I'm SO glad you told
me. I'm SO glad! Cheer up," she says. "I respect you more than ever, and
my father and I will--"

Just then the colonel comes puffing up the hill. He looked as if he'd
heard news.

"My child," he says in a kind of horrified whisper, "can you realize
that we have actually passed the night in the--in the ALMSHOUSE?"

Mabel held up her hand. "Hush, papa," she says. "Hush. I know all about
it. Come away, quick; I've got something very important to say to you."

And she took her dad's arm and went off down the hill, mopping her
pretty eyes with her handkerchief and smiling back, every once in a
while, through her tears, at Asaph.

Now, it happened that there was a selectmen's meeting that afternoon
at four o'clock. I was on hand, and so was Zoeth Tiddit and most of the
others. Cap'n Poundberry and Darius Gott were late. Zoeth was as happy
as a clam at high water; he'd sold the poorhouse property that very day
to a Colonel Lamont, from Harniss, who wanted it for a summer place.

"And I got the price we set on it, too," says Zoeth. "But that wa'n't
the funniest part of it. Seems's old man Lamont and his daughter was
very much upset because Debby Badger and Ase Blueworthy would be turned
out of house and home 'count of the place being sold. The colonel was
hot foot for giving 'em a check for five hundred dollars to square
things; said his daughter'd made him promise he would. Says I: 'You
can give it to Debby, if you want to, but don't lay a copper on that
Blueworthy fraud.' Then I told him the truth about Ase. He couldn't
hardly believe