did Paul say to that?" asked Silas eagerly.

"He said that while some people might think you were queer, you had been
a good dad to him. I think he said dad, but I'll not be sure."

"Yes, yes, he said it," cried Silas, all in a glow. "That's Paul all
over; but what will the poor boy think when he finds out what you know?"

"Why, he'll enjoy the situation," said the lady, laughing. "As you
Georgians say, he'll be tickled to death."

Silas regarded her with astonishment, his hands clenched and his thin
lips pressed together. "Do you think, Madam, that it is a matter for a
joke? You women----"

"Can't I have my own views? You have yours, and I make no objection."

"But think of what a serious matter it is to me. Do you realise that
there is nothing but a whim betwixt me and disgrace--betwixt Paul and
disgrace?"

"A whim? Why, you are another Daniel O'Connell! Call me a hyperbole, a
rectangled triangle, a parenthesis, or a hyphen." She was laughing, and
yet it was plain to be seen that she had no relish for the term which
Silas had unintentionally applied to her.

"I meant to say that if the notion seized you, you would fetch us down
as a hunter bags a brace of doves."

"Doves!" exclaimed Mrs. Claiborne, with a comical lift of the eyebrows.

"Buzzards, then!" said Silas with some heat.

"Oh, you overdo everything," laughed the lady.

"Well, there's nobody hurt but me," was Silas's gruff reply.

"And Paul," suggested the lady, with a peculiar smile.

"Well, when I say Paul, I mean myself. I've been called worse names than
buzzard by people who were trying to walk off with my money. Oh, they
didn't call me that to my face," said Silas, noticing a queer expression
in the lady's eyes. "And people who should have known better have hated
me because I didn't fling my money away after I had saved it."

"Well, you needn't worry about that," Mrs. Claiborne remarked. "You will
have plenty of company in the money-grabbing business before long. I can
see signs of it now, and every time I think of it I feel sorry for our
young men, yes, and our young women, and the long generations that are
to come after them. In the course of a very few years you will find your
business to be more respectable than any of the professions. You
remember how, before the war, we used to sneer at the Yankees for their
money-making proclivities? Well, it won't be very long before we'll beat
them at their own game; and then our politicians will