the other.

An investigating committee met that evening at Mrs. Snigham's--sitting
in secret session over her best china. Though invited only to a quiet
"tea," the amount of judicial business they transacted on the occasion
was prodigious. The biscuits were actually cold before the committee had
a chance to eat anything. There was so much to talk over, and it was
so important that it should be firmly established that each member
had always been "certain sure that something extraordinary would be
happening to that man yet," that it was nearly eight o'clock before Mrs.
Snigham gave anybody a second cup.

Broad Sunshine

One snowy day in January Laurens Boekman went with his father to pay his
respects to the Brinker family.

Raff was resting after the labors of the day; Gretel, having filled and
lighted his pipe, was brushing every speck of ash from the hearth; the
dame was spinning; and Hans, perched upon a stool by the window, was
diligently studying his lessons. It was a peaceful, happy household
whose main excitement during the past week had been the looking forward
to this possible visit from Thomas Higgs.

As soon as the grand presentation was over, Dame Brinker insisted upon
giving her guests some hot tea; it was enough to freeze anyone, she
said, to be out in such crazy, blustering weather. While they were
talking with her husband she whispered to Gretel that the young
gentleman's eyes and her boy's were certainly as much alike as four
beans, to say nothing of a way they both had of looking as if they were
stupid and yet knew as much as a body's grandfather.

Gretel was disappointed. She had looked forward to a tragic scene, such
as Annie Bouman had often described to her, from storybooks; and here
was the gentleman who came so near being a murderer, who for ten years
had been wandering over the face of the earth, who believed himself
deserted and scorned by his father--the very young gentleman who had
fled from his country in such magnificent trouble, sitting by the fire
just as pleasant and natural as could be!

To be sure, his voice had trembled when he talked with her parents, and
he had met his father's look with a bright kind of smile that would have
suited a dragon-killer bringing the waters of perpetual youth to his
king, but after all, he wasn't at all like the conquered hero in Annie's
book. He did not say, lifting his arm toward heaven, "I hereby swear
to be forever faithful to my home