posted?
Where do they expect to get their information? Through the overseer?"

"Through the overseer," whispered Mrs. Gray, in reply.

"Are you afraid to speak the words out loud?" cried Marcy, who had
seldom been so excited as he was at that moment. "Great Moses! Have
things come to such a pass that we dare not talk in our ordinary tones
in our own house, but must carry on our conversation in whispers?"

"I was in hopes that my letters would prepare you for something like
this," said his mother slowly.

"Well, they didn't. Of course I knew I should find things changed, but I
never thought we should be spied upon in our own house," answered Marcy.
"Traitors, are we, when we haven't done the first thing to deserve the
name! But is there no way in which that villain Hanson can be got rid
of?"

"There is but one way that occurs to me now," was the reply. "When his
contract expires we can tell him that we do not intend to employ an
overseer any longer."

"And that will be almost a year from now," groaned Marcy. "How can we
live for so many months, knowing all the while that our every movement
is watched, and that some one is constantly trying to catch every word
we say? I don't believe I can stand it. Did Gifford say anything
about----"

Marcy paused, got upon his feet, and opened quickly, but silently, one
after another, all the doors that led from the room in which he and his
mother were sitting. There were no eavesdroppers among the servants
_yet_ but that was no sign that there wouldn't be some to-morrow or next
day. An overseer who was left as much to himself as Hanson was, held
great power in his hands; and some negro servants are as open to bribery
as some white people are. Having made sure that there was no one
listening at the door, Marcy drew his chair close to his mother's side
before he spoke again.

"Did Gifford say anything about the money--the thirty thousand dollars
in gold you have hidden in the cellar wall?" he asked, in suppressed
tones.

"He did, and it troubles me more than anything else he said during his
visit," replied Mrs. Gray, glancing nervously around the room, as if she
feared that there might be a listener concealed behind some of the
chairs or under the sofa. "In spite of my utmost care, that matter,
which I hoped to keep from the knowledge of even the most faithful among
the servants, has become known. I cannot account for it. It fairly
unnerves me to think of it, for it suggests