answered Stumpy. "But I shouldn't feel right--administrator or
not--if Le's father wasn't helped out of trouble."

"I was not aware that Mr. Bennington was in difficulty."

"He is--up to his eyes; and I know very well that my grandfather--that's
Squire Moses--means to get the Sea Cliff House away from him, if he can,
and let Ethan Wormbury have it. This money must save him. He's been a
good friend to me, and I should be a hog if I didn't help him out.
Mother will do it, too, I know; for if it hadn't been for Le, we
shouldn't have seen this money."

"We will talk with your mother about it," replied Mr. Hamilton, as he
put the gold back into the shot-bag, and asked the watch-maker to keep
it in the safe till the next day, when he intended to dispose of it in
Rockland.

Stumpy placed the twelve hundred dollars in bills in his wallet, and put
it in his pocket; but he did not remove his hand from it till he
reached his mother's house. If the widow's son was almost crazy in the
whirl of remarkable events which so suddenly altered the fortunes of the
family, it was hardly to be wondered at; and doubtless the ardor and
fury with which he rushed into the house, with his hand still clutching
the wallet in his pocket, would have startled his mother, if she had not
been sadly occupied with an affair of her own. Squire Moses, Ethan, and
the village lawyer were with her, and were about to give the legal
notice of the foreclosure of the mortgage. The old man was afraid that
he should be cheated out of his prey if he waited any longer. Stumpy
rushed into the house, followed by Mr. Hamilton and Leopold.

"O, my son," exclaimed Mrs. Wormbury, "the house is to be taken from
us!"

"Not now," interposed Squire Moses. "I told you that you might stay here
till the first of August. I'm not a hard man, to turn you out without
any notice. I always mean to do what is just right."

"Of course. I have been expecting it, after what you said; but it comes
very hard to be turned out of house and home," sobbed Mrs. Wormbury.

"You shall not be turned out, mother," cried Stumpy, blubbered himself,
when he saw the tears in his mother's eyes; "neither now nor on the
first of August."

"Why Stumpfield, what do you mean?"

"Perhaps the boy means to pay the note of seven hundred dollars,"
sneered Squire Moses. "But I don't want any nonsense about this
business."

"That's just what I'm going to do, grandpa," shouted Stumpy, drawing the
wallet f