he was ready to supply me with sufficient funds for
my needs."

"Well, he didn't come to me," Miss Polly declared with emphasis, "and if
anybody in this world had needs, I did. You remember Robert Gaither?
Well, Silas loaned him some money during the war, and although Robert
was in a bad way, old Silas collected every cent down to the very last,
and Robert had to go to Texas. Oh, I could tell you of numberless
instances where he took advantage of those who had borrowed from him."

"I suppose that Mr. Lumsden had been kind to Silas when he was sowing
his wild oats; indeed, I think my husband advanced him money when he had
exhausted the supply allowed him by the executors of the Tomlin estate."

"And just think of it, Lucy--Ritta Claiborne sits there and plays the
piano for old Silas, and sometimes Eugenia goes in and sings, and she
has a beautiful voice; I'm not too deaf to know that."

It was then that Mrs. Lumsden leaned over and gave the ear-trumpet some
very good advice. "If I were in your place, Polly, I wouldn't tell this
to any one else. Mrs. Claiborne is an excellent woman; she comes of a
good family, and she is cultured and refined. No doubt she is sensitive,
and if she heard that you were spreading your suspicions abroad, she
would hardly feel like staying in a house where----" Mrs. Lumsden
paused. She had it on her tongue's-end to say, "in a house where she is
spied upon," but she had no desire in the world to offend that
simple-minded old soul, who, behind all her peculiarities and
afflictions, had a very tender heart.

"I know what you mean, Lucy," said Miss Polly, "and your advice is good;
but I can't help seeing what goes on under my eyes, and I thought there
could be no harm in telling you about it. I am very fond of Ritta
Claiborne, and as for Eugenia, why she is simply angelic. I love that
child as well as if she were my own. If there's a flaw in her character,
I have never found it. I'll say that much."

The explanation of Miss Polly's suspicions is not as simple as her
recital of them. No one can account for some of the impulses of the
human heart, or the vagaries of the human mind. It is easy to say that
after Silas Tomlin had his last interview with Mrs. Claiborne, he
permitted his mind to dwell on her personality and surroundings, and so
fell gradually under a spell. Such an explanation is not only easy to
imagine, but it is plausible; nevertheless, it would not be true. There
is a sort of tr