ould be
cancelled, and the debt should be considered paid. He declared that the
proposal was made solely in the interest of the Fleming family, and
there were a good many people in Gershom who believed him.

To this proposal, however, Mr Fleming returned a prompt and brief
refusal. He said little about it, but it was known that he believed
evil of Jacob Holt with regard to the matter, and though he kept
silence, others spoke. The North Gore people took the matter up, and so
did the people of the village. Mr Fleming had friends in both sections
of the town, and some of them did not spare hard words in the
discussion.

Jacob Holt was now the rich man of Gershom, one of the chief supporters
of the church and of every good cause encouraged in the town, and all
this did not promise well for the union in church matters so earnestly
desired by many good people in Gershom.

CHAPTER THREE.

THE HOLTS.

Gershom Holt was to all appearance a hale old man, but for a long time
before this he had had little to do with the management of the business
of Holt and Son. He still lived in the great square house which had
succeeded the log-house built by him in the early days of the
settlement. Two of his children lived with him--Elizabeth, the youngest
child of his first wife, and Clifton, the only child of his second wife,
who had died in giving him birth.

Elizabeth was good, pretty, and clever, and still single at twenty-four.
The persons she loved best in the world were her father and her younger
brother. Her father loved and trusted her entirely, and every passing
day made him more dependent on her for comfort and for counsel; for he
was a very old man, and in many ways needed the care which it was his
daughter's first duty and pleasure to give. Her brother loved and
trusted her too in his way, but he was only a lad, and too well
contented with himself and his life to know the value of her love as
yet, and she was not without anxious thoughts about him. He was
supposed to be distinguishing himself in a New England College as he had
before distinguished himself in the High-School of the village, and only
spent his vacations at home.

There was a difference of nearly twenty years in the ages of Gershom
Holt's two sons, and they had little in common except their father's
name. Elizabeth loved them both, and respected the youngest most.
Jacob was a little afraid of his sister, and took pains to be on the
best of ter