ut the discovery of the gold,
for if it should become known anywhere from Greenland to Patagonia, he
might find a steamer lying off the Rackbirds' cove when his slow
sailing-vessel should arrive there. The other request was that Edna keep
the two negroes with her if this would not prove inconvenient. But if
this plan would at all trouble her, he asked that they be sent to him
immediately.

In answer to this letter, Edna merely telegraphed the captain, informing
him that she would remain in San Francisco until she had heard that he
had sailed when she would immediately start for the East, and for France,
with Ralph and the two negroes.

Three days after this she received a telegram from Captain Horn, stating
that he would sail in an hour, and the next day she and her little party
took a train for New York.

CHAPTER XXVIII

"HOME, SWEET HOME"

On the high-street of the little town of Plainton, Maine, stood the neat
white house of Mrs. Cliff, with its green shutters, its porchless front
door, its pretty bit of flower-garden at the front and side, and its neat
back yard, sacred once a week to that virtue which is next to godliness.

Mrs. Cliff's husband had been the leading merchant in Plainton, and
having saved some money, he had invested it in an enterprise of a friend
who had gone into business in Valparaiso. On Mr. Cliff's death his widow
had found herself with an income smaller than she had expected, and that
it was necessary to change in a degree her style of living. The
hospitalities of her table, once so well known throughout the circle of
her friends, must be curtailed, and the spare bedroom must be less
frequently occupied. The two cows and the horse were sold, and in every
way possible the household was placed on a more economical basis. She had
a good house, and an income on which, with care and prudence, she could
live, but this was all.

In this condition of her finances it was not strange that Mrs. Cliff had
thought a good deal about the investments in Valparaiso, from which she
had not heard for a long time. Her husband had been dead for three years,
and although she had written several times to Valparaiso, she had
received no answer whatever, and being a woman of energy, she had finally
made up her mind that the proper thing to do was to go down and see after
her affairs. It had not been easy for her to get together the money for
this long journey,--in fact, she had borrowed some of it,--and