gave his opinion before any one had a chance
to express theirs.

It was the first time he had been in the house since the morning after
the party, when Arthur had turned him from the door. He had vowed
vengeance against the Tracys then, and kept his vow by spending two
thousand dollars in order to defeat Frank as member of Congress and to
get himself elected as one of the village trustees, and now he had come,
partly out of curiosity to see the woman, and partly to oppose her being
buried by the town, if such a thing were suggested.

'Let them Tracys bury their own dead,' he said to his wife before he
left home, and he said it again in substance now, as with a tremendous
'ahem!' he commenced his speech standing close to little Jerry, who
never took her eyes from him, but watched him with a face which varied
in its expression with every variation in his voice and manner, and
reached its climax when he said: 'I don't b'lieve in saddlin' the town
with a debt we don't orto pay. Let the Tracys bury their own dead, I
say!'

''Ess, 'ess, 'ess,' Jerry chimed in with an emphatic shake of her head
with each ''ess,' and a flourish of her hand more threatening than
approving toward the speaker, who glanced at her and went on:

'Do you see, gentlemen of the jury, who this cub looks like. I do! and
so can you with half an eye. She looks like Arthur Tracy!'

Just then Jerry swept back her golden hair, and, opening her eyes,
flashed them around the room until they rested by accident upon Frank,
who, pale, and faint, and terrified, was leaning against the door-way
trying to seem only amused at the tirade which was concluded as follows:

'Yes, Arthur Tracy! Not her skin, perhaps, nor hair, nor her eyes,
leastwise not the color, but something I can't describe; and this woman,
her mother, you say is a furriner; that may be, but I've seen her afore,
or I'm mistaken. She took passage once on the 'Liza Ann, I'm sure on't,
and Arthur look passage same day as far as Chester and was as chipper as
you please with her. I don't say nothin', nor insinerate nothin', but I
won't consent to have the town pay what belongs to the Tracys. Let 'em
run their own canoes and funerals, too, I say; and as for this young one
with the yaller hair--though where she got that the lord only knows;
'tain't her's,' pointing to the corpse; 'nor 'tain't his'n,' pointing in
the direction of Arthur's rooms; 'as for her, I'm opposed to sendin' to
the poor-house anoth