which seemed horribly familiar to her, and yet strange.
Tozer nodded at her gloomily, holding his head between his hands, and
Phoebe read over the first few words before her with an aching heart, and
eyes that seemed to ache in sympathy. Only a few words, but what
evidence of guilt, what pitiful misery in them! She did not even think
so much of the name on the back, which was and was not her grandfather's
name. The rest of the bill was written in a hand disguised and changed;
but she had seen a great deal of similar writing lately, and she
recognized it with a sickening at her heart. In the kind of fatherly
flirtation which had been innocently carried on between Phoebe and her
friend's father, various productions of his in manuscript had been given
to her to read. She was said, in the pleasant social jokes of the party,
to be more skilled in interpreting Mr. May's handwriting than any of his
family. She stood and gazed at the paper, and her eyes filled with tears
of pain and pity. The openness of this self-betrayal, veiled as it was
with a shadow of disguise which could deceive no one who knew him, went
to Phoebe's heart. What could he have done it for? Mere money, the
foolish expenses of every day, or, what would be more respectable, some
vague mysterious claim upon him, which might make desperate expedients
necessary? She stood, temporarily stupefied, with her eyes full, looking
at that pitiful, terrible, guilty bit of paper, stupefied by the sudden
realization of her sudden guess at the truth--though, indeed, the truth
was so much more guilty and appalling than any guess of hers.

"Well," said Tozer, "you've seen it, and now what do you think of it?
That's my name, mind you, my name! I hope the Almighty will grant me
patience. Stuck on to what they calls a kite, an accommodation bill.
What do you think of that, Miss Phoebe? A-a-ah! if I had hold of him--if
I had him under my fists--if I had him by the scruff of the neck!"

"Grandpapa, doesn't it say in the Bible we are to forgive when harm is
done to us?"

Phoebe had begun to tremble all over; for the first time she doubted her
own power.

He got up again, and began to prowl about the table, round and round,
with the same wild look in his eyes.

"I am not one as would go again' Scripture," he said, gloomily; "but
that's a spiritual meaning as you're too young to enter into. You don't
suppose as Scripture would approve of crime, or let them escape as had
wronged