still whispered to each
other as they got ready for bed. With strange forgetfulness Betsey had
laid the chest key on the white coverlet in the bedroom and left it
there.

III.

In August of that year the whole countryside turned out to go to
court.

The sisters had been rich for one night; in the morning they waked to
find themselves poor with a bitter pang of poverty of which they had
never dreamed. They had said little, but they grew suddenly pinched
and old. They could not tell how much money they had lost, except that
Hannah's lap was full of gold, a weight she could not lift nor carry.
After a few days of stolid misery they had gone to the chief lawyer of
their neighborhood to accuse Enoch Holt of the robbery. They dressed
in their best and walked solemnly side by side across the fields and
along the road, the shortest way to the man of law. Enoch Holt's
daughter saw them go as she stood in her doorway, and felt a cold
shiver run through her frame as if in foreboding. Her father was not
at home; he had left for Boston late on the afternoon of Captain
Knowles's funeral. He had had notice the day before of the coming in
of a ship in which he owned a thirty-second; there was talk of
selling the ship, and the owners' agent had summoned him. He had taken
pains to go to the funeral, because he and the old captain had been on
bad terms ever since they had bought a piece of woodland together, and
the captain declared himself wronged at the settling of accounts. He
was growing feeble even then, and had left the business to the younger
man. Enoch Holt was not a trusted man, yet he had never before been
openly accused of dishonesty. He was not a professor of religion, but
foremost on the secular side of church matters. Most of the men in
that region were hard men; it was difficult to get money, and there
was little real comfort in a community where the sterner, stingier,
forbidding side of New England life was well exemplified.

The proper steps had been taken by the officers of the law, and in
answer to the writ Enoch Holt appeared, much shocked and very
indignant, and was released on bail which covered the sum his shipping
interest had brought him. The weeks had dragged by; June and July were
long in passing, and here was court day at last, and all the townsfolk
hastening by high-roads and by-roads to the court-house. The Knowles
girls themselves had risen at break of day and walked the distance
steadfastly, like