ling. And in that way we
earned the money to pay for the damage done by our fox pills.

Mr. Cutter, the owner of the Percheron, was willing to settle his loss
for one hundred dollars; and during the winter, by dint of many
inquiries, we heard of another sorrel, a three-year-old, which we
purchased for a hundred and fifteen dollars. We took Mr. Kennard into
our confidence and with his connivance planned a pleasant surprise for
his wife. While Theodora and Ellen, who had accompanied us to the
village, were entertaining Mrs. Kennard indoors, the old Squire and
Addison and I smuggled the colt into the little stable and put her in
the same stall where Sylph had once stood. When all was ready, Mr.
Kennard went in and said:

"Louise, Sylph's got back! Come out to the stable!"

Wonderingly Mrs. Kennard followed him out to the stable. For a moment
she gazed, astonished; then, of course, she guessed the ruse. "Oh, but
it isn't Sylph!" she cried. "It isn't half so pretty!" And out came her
pocket handkerchief again.

The old Squire took her gently by the hand. "It's the best we could do,"
he said. "We hope you will accept her with our best wishes."

Truth to say, Mrs. Kennard's tears were soon dried; and before long the
new colt became almost as great a pet as the lost Sylph.

"Don't you ever forget, and don't you ever let me forget, how the old
Squire has helped us out of this scrape," Ad said to me that night after
we had gone upstairs. "He's an old Christian. If he ever needs a friend
in his old age and I fail him, let my name be Ichabod!"

CHAPTER XIV

THE UNPARDONABLE SIN

During the first week in May the old Squire and grandmother Ruth made a
trip to Portland, and when they came back, they brought, among other
presents to us young folks at home, a glass jar of goldfish for Ellen.

In Ellen's early home, before the Civil War and before she came to the
old Squire's to live, there had always been a jar of goldfish in the
window, and afterwards at the old farm the girl had often remarked that
she missed it. Well I remember the cry of joy she gave that day when
grandmother stepped down from the wagon at the farmhouse door and,
turning, took a glass jar of goldfish from under the seat.

"O grandmother!" she cried and fairly flew to take it from the old
lady's hands.

Ellen had eyes for nothing else that evening, and as it grew dark she
went time and again with a lamp to look at the fish and to drop in
crumbs