Page:A strange, sad comedy (IA strangesadcomedy00seawiala).pdf/58

46 in 1814,—and they lent it all out, and ever since then they have been borrowing, as far as I can make out. Well, some of it was on a mortgage that was foreclosed the other day, so grandpapa says, and he got two thousand dollars."

Letty held off to watch the effect of this stunning statement. Two thousand dollars was a great deal of money to her. Farebrother, arrant hypocrite that he was, had learned the important lesson of promptly adopting Letty's view of everything, and did it so thoroughly that sometimes he overdid it.

"Why, that 's a pot of money," he said gravely. "It's quite staggering to contemplate."

Letty was not deficient in shrewdness, and she knew by that time that the standard of values in Virginia and at Newport varied. So she looked at him very hard, and said, sternly:

"I hope you are not telling me a story."

"Of course not. But really," here Farebrother became quite serious, "it depends a good deal on how it comes. Last year, for example, I only made three thousand dollars.