am going to ride down to
exchange a few yarns with Mrs. Brown; will you go along?"

"What's the use?" exclaimed Mark, looking through the moist windows into
the street. "You won't get anything but lies out of her. And just see
how it rains!"

"It doesn't rain to hurt anything, and we can't talk here," said Tom. "I
don't care whether Mrs. Brown tells me the truth or not, so long as she
will aid me in spreading a few items of news that came to my ears this
morning. Better go, for I promise that I will surprise you. You know I
rode down with Beardsley."

"And I rather wondered at it. I can remember when you used to speak of
him in a way that was anything but complimentary. Did he tell you what
brought him home?" said Mark, in a whisper. "Come along then. I am ready
to be surprised."

The two boys mounted their horses and rode away through the driving
rain, and as they rode, Tom Allison electrified his friend by making a
clean breast of everything Beardsley had told him, and which he had
promised to keep to himself; and observing that Mark was interested and
excited by the narrative, Tom added to it a few details of his own
invention. He declared that Hanson had told Beardsley, in confidence,
that Mrs. Gray owed a big pile of money to Northern men, and instead of
turning it over to the government, as the law provided, she was keeping
it for her own use.

"And how does it come that Hanson could learn so much of Mrs. Gray's
private affairs?" demanded Mark. "He didn't live in the house, but in
the quarter with the niggers."

"Probably some of the house servants posted him," answered Tom. "You
know that prying darkies sometimes find out a heap of things."

"That's so," assented Mark. "Tom, you have told me great news--Mrs. Gray
with a gold mine hidden somewhere in her house, and Marcy taking his
brother Jack out to the Yankee fleet to give him a chance to enlist
under the old flag! What are we coming to? What are you going to do
about it? You must have some plan in your head, or you wouldn't be going
to see Mrs. Brown. You had better be careful what you say in the
presence of that old witch, or she may get you into trouble."

"That is the very thing I wanted to talk to you about," replied Tom.
"What do you think we ought to do? I don't know whether I have the
straight of the story or not, but I am sure Mrs. Brown has, for
Beardsley probably told her all about it as soon as he got home last
night. That man can't keep