ut Simon, I mean. I'll tell him to-morrow; but
I don't want to trouble him to-night. This is our Faith's
birthday,--seventeen year old she'd have been to-day; and it's been a
right hard day for Jacob! I'll tell him about it in the morning."

Alas! when morning came it was too late. The kitchen door was swinging
idly open; the desk was broken open and rifled; and Simon Hartley was
gone, and with him the savings of ten years' patient labor.

CHAPTER XII.

THE OLD MILL.

It was a sad group that sat in the pleasant kitchen that bright
September morning. The good farmer sat before his empty desk, seeming
half stupefied by the blow which had fallen so suddenly upon him, while
his wife hung about him, reproaching herself bitterly for not having put
him on his guard the night before. Hildegarde moved restlessly about the
kitchen, setting things to rights, as she thought, though in reality she
hardly knew what she was doing, and had already carefully deposited the
teapot in the coal-hod, and laid the broom on the top shelf of the
dresser. Her heart was full of wrath and sorrow,--fierce anger against
the miserable wretch who had robbed his benefactor; sympathy for her
kind friends, brought thus suddenly from comfort to distress. For she
knew now that the money which Simon had stolen had been drawn from the
bank only two days before to pay off the mortgage on the farm.

"I shouldn't ha' minded the money," Farmer Hartley was saying, even now,
"if I'd ha' been savin' it jest to spend or lay by. I shouldn't ha'
minded, though 'twould ha' hurt jest the same to hev Simon's son take
it,--my brother Simon's son, as I allus stood by. But it's hard to let
the farm go. I tell ye, Marm Lucy, it's terrible hard!" and he bowed his
head upon his hands in a dejection which made his wife weep anew and
wring her hands.

"But they will not take the farm from you, Farmer Hartley!" cried Hilda,
aghast. "They _cannot_ do that, can they? Why, it was your father's, and
your grandfather's before him."

"And _his_ father's afore _him_!" said the farmer, looking up with a sad
smile on his kindly face. "But that don't make no difference, ye see,
Hildy. Lawyer Clinch is a hard man, a terrible hard man; and he's always
wanted this farm. It's the best piece o' land in the hull township, an'
he wants it for a market farm."

"But _why_ did you mortgage it to him?" cried Hilda.

"I didn't, my gal; I didn't!" said the farmer, sadly. "He'd kep' wa