sion." Quincy smiled.
"They packed Jones off to the city at once," said Lindy, "and his
mother gave him five thousand dollars to go into business with. Jones
began speculating, and he was successful from first to last. In three
months he paid back the five thousand dollars his mother had given him,
and he never took a dollar from them after that day. At twenty-six he
was worth one hundred thousand dollars. When I went to Boston I always
saw him, and he at last told me he could stand it no longer. Be wanted
me to marry him and go to Europe with him. I told him I must have a week
to think it over. If I decided to go I would be in Boston on a certain
day. I would bring my trunk and would stop at a certain hotel and send
word for him to come to me. I used all possible secrecy in getting my
clothes ready, and packed them away, as I thought, unnoticed, in my
trunk, which was in the attic. Mrs. Putnam must have suspected that I
intended to leave home, and she knew that I would not go unless to meet
her son. The day before I planned going to Boston, or rather the night
before, she entered my room while I was asleep, took every particle of
my clothing, with the exception of one house dress and a pair of
slippers, and locked me in. They kept me there for a week, and I wished
that I had died there, for when they came to me it was to tell me that
Jones was dead, and I was the cause of it. I who loved him so!" And the
girl's eyes filled with tears.

"What was the cause of his death?" asked Quincy.

"He was young, healthy, and careless," answered Lindy. "He took a bad
cold and it developed into lung fever. Even then he claimed it was
nothing and would not see a doctor. One morning he did not come to the
office, his clerk went to his room, but when the doctor was called it
was too late. It was very sad that he should die so, believing that I
had refused to go with him, when I would have given my life for him. He
loved me till death. He left me all his money, but in his will he
expressed the wish that I would never accept a dollar from his parents.
So now you see why Mrs. Putnam does not make me her heiress. You think I
hate Miss Pettengill because she is going to give it to her, but truly I
do not, Mr. Sawyer. What I said when you came in I really meant, and I
hope you will be happy, Mr. Sawyer, even as I hoped to be years ago."

Quincy had been greatly interested in Lindy's story, and that feeling of
sympathy for the unhappy and su