s friends over on the Vineyard.
But, Gar'ner, our great affair still remains to be accounted for. Do you
wish to have the room cleared before you speak of that--shall we turn the
_key_ on all these folks, and then settle accounts--he! he! he!"

The deacon's facetiousness sounded strangely out of place to Roswell;
still, he did not exactly know how to gainsay his wishes. There might be
an indiscretion in pursuing his narrative before so many witnesses, and
the young man paused until the room was cleared, leaving no one in it but
the sick man, Mary, himself, and the nurse. The last could not well be
gotten rid of on Oyster Pond, where her office gave her an assumed right
to know all family secrets; or, what was the same thing to her, to
_fancy_ that she knew them. Among all the sayings which the experience of
mankind has reduced to axioms, there is not one more just than that which
says, "There are secrets in all families." These secrets the world
commonly affects to know all about, but we think few will have reached the
age of threescore without becoming convinced of how much pretending
ignorance there is in this assumption of the world. "_Tot ou tard tout se
scait_" is a significant saying of our old friends, the French, who know
as much of things, in practice as any other people on the face of the
earth; but "_tot ou tard tout ne se scait pas_."

"Is the door shut?" asked the deacon, tremulously, for eagerness, united
to debility, was sadly shaking his whole frame. "See that the door is shut
tight, Mary; this is our own secret, and nurse must remember that."

Mary assured him that they were alone, and turned away in sorrow from the
bed.

"Now, Gar'ner," resumed the deacon, "open your whole heart, and let us
know all about it."

Roswell hesitated to reply; for he, too, was shocked at witnessing this
instance of a soul's clinging to mammon, when on the very eve of departing
for the unknown world. There was a look in the glazed and sunken eyes of
the old man, that reminded him unpleasantly of that snapping of the eyes
which he had so often seen in Daggett.

"You didn't forget the key, surely, Gar'ner?" asked the deacon,
anxiously.

"No, sir; we did our whole duty by that part of the voyage."

"Did you find it--was the place accurately described?"

"No chart could have made it better. We lost a month in looking for the
principal land-mark, which had been altered by the weather; but, that once
found, the rest was