rm of the same disease," Henrietta went on. "Did you
know General Wilmot?"

"He was a fine man," said Hiram, "one of the founders of this town, and
he made a fortune out of it. He got overbearing, and what he thought was
proud, toward the end of his life. But he had a good heart and worked for
all he had--honest work."

"And he brought his family up to be real down-East gentlemen and
ladies," resumed Henrietta. "And look at 'em. They lost the money,
because they were too gentlemanly and too ladylike to work to hold on to
it. And there they live in the big house, half-starved. Why, really, Mr.
Ranger, they don't have enough to eat. And they dress in clothes that
have been in the family for a generation. They make their underclothes
out of old bed linen. And the grass on their front lawns is three feet
high, and the moss and weeds cover and pry up the bricks of their walks.
They're too 'proud' to work and too poor to hire. How much have they
borrowed from you?"

"I don't know," said Hiram. "Not much."

"I know better--and you oughtn't to have lent them a cent. Yesterday old
Wilmot was hawking two of his grandfather's watches about. And all the
Wilmots have got brains, just as our family has. Nothing wrong with
either of us, but that stream Dory Hargrave was talking about."

"There's John Dumont," mused Ranger.

"Yes--_he_ is an exception. But what's he doing with what his father left
him? I don't let them throw dust in my eyes with his philanthropy as they
call it. The plain truth is he's a gambler and a thief, and he uses what
his father left him to be gambler and thief on the big scale, and so keep
out of the penitentiary--'finance,' they call it. If he'd been poor, he'd
have been in jail long ago--no, he wouldn't--he'd have done differently.
It was the money that started him wrong."

"A great deal of good can be done with money," said Hiram.

"Can it?" demanded Mrs. Fred. "It don't look that way to me. I'm full of
this, for I was hauling my Alfred over the coals this very morning"--she
laughed--"for being what I've made him, for doing what I'd do in his
place--for being like my father and my brothers. It seems to me, precious
little of the alleged good that's done with wealth is really good; and
what little isn't downright bad hides the truth from people. Talk about
the good money does! What does it amount to--the good that's good, and
the good that's rotten bad? What does it all amount to beside the good
that