it, but I finally convinced him, and he made out the
check to Debby. I took it down to her myself just after dinner. Ase was
there, and his eyes pretty nigh popped out of his head.

"'Look here,' I says to him; 'if you'd been worth a continental
you might have had some of this. As it is, you'll be farmed out
somewheres--that's what'll happen to YOU.'"

And as Zoeth was telling this, in comes Cap'n Benijah. He was happy,
too.

"I cal'late the Lamonts must be buying all the property alongshore,"
he says when he heard the news. "I sold that old shack that I took
from Blueworthy to that Lamont girl to-day for three hundred and fifty
dollars. She wouldn't say what she wanted of it, neither, and I didn't
care much; _I_ was glad to get rid of it."

"_I_ can tell you what she wanted of it," says somebody behind us. We
turned round and 'twas Gott; he'd come in. "I just met Squire Foster,"
he says, "and the squire tells me that that Lamont girl come into his
office with the bill of sale for the property you sold her and made him
deed it right over to Ase Blueworthy, as a present from her."

"WHAT?" says all hands, Poundberry loudest of all.

"That's right," said Darius. "She told the squire a long rigamarole
about what a martyr Ase was, and how her dad was going to do some thing
for him, but that she was going to give him his home back again with her
own money, money her father had given her to buy a ring with, she said,
though that ain't reasonable, of course--nobody'd pay that much for a
ring. The squire tried to tell her what a no-good Ase was, but she froze
him quicker'n--Where you going, Cap'n Benije?"

"I'm going down to that poorhouse," hollers Poundberry. "I'll find out
the rights and wrongs of this thing mighty quick."

We all said we'd go with him, and we went, six in one carryall. As we
hove in sight of the poorhouse a buggy drove away from it, going in
t'other direction.

"That looks like the Baptist minister's buggy," says Darius. "What on
earth's he been down here for?"

Nobody could guess. As we run alongside the poorhouse door, Ase
Blueworthy stepped out, leading Debby Badger. She was as red as an
auction flag.

"By time, Ase Blueworthy!" hollers Cap'n Benijah, starting to get out
of the carryall, "what do you mean by--Debby, what are you holding that
rascal's hand for?"

But Ase cut him short. "Cap'n Poundberry," says he, dignified as a boy
with a stiff neck, "I might pass over your remarks to me,