it should
happen it would be bad for poor Lonny."

"Even in that case Lonny won't have to go to the poor-house."

"Mr. Pitkin, you don't realize the danger. Here's Uncle Oliver worth a
quarter of a million dollars, and it ought to be left to us."

"Probably it will be."

"He may leave it all to this boy. This must be prevented."

"How?"

"You must say the boy doesn't suit you, and discharge him."

"Well, well, give me time. I have no objection; but I suspect it will be
hard to find any fault with him. He looks like a reliable boy."

"To me he looks like an artful young adventurer," said Mrs. Pitkin
vehemently. "Depend upon it, Mr. Pitkin, he will spare no pains to
ingratiate himself into Uncle Oliver's favor."

It will be seen that Mrs. Pitkin was gifted--if it can be called a
gift--with a very suspicious temperament. She was mean and grasping, and
could not bear the idea of even a small part of her uncle's money going
to any one except her own family. There was, indeed, another whose
relationship to Uncle Oliver was as close--a cousin, who had estranged
her relatives by marrying a poor bookkeeper, with whom she had gone to
Milwaukee. Her name was never mentioned in the Pitkin household, and
Mrs. Pitkin, trusting to the distance between them, did not apprehend
any danger from this source. Had she known Rebecca Forbush was even
now in New York, a widow with one child, struggling to make a living by
sewing and taking lodgers, she would have felt less tranquil. But
she knew nothing of all this, nor did she dream that the boy whom she
dreaded was the very next day to make the acquaintance of this despised
relation.

This was the way that it happened:

Phil soon tired of the room he had taken in Fifth Street. It was not
neatly kept, and was far from comfortable. Then again, he found that
the restaurants, cheap as they were, were likely to absorb about all his
salary, though the bill-of-fare was far from attractive.

Chance took him through a side-street, between Second and Third Avenues,
in the neighborhood of Thirteenth Street.

Among the three and four-story buildings that lined the block was one
frame-house, two-story-and-basement, on which he saw a sign, "Board
for Gentlemen." He had seen other similar signs, but his attention was
specially drawn to this by seeing a pleasant-looking woman enter the
house with the air of proprietor. This woman recalled to Philip his own
mother, to whom she bore a striking