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“!” sounded the voice of the young master of the estate from the courtyard.

“Well, what is it?” responded his old father with an ill-humored question which expressed no pleasant anticipation of what the “young master” would have to say.

“Oh, well, nothing! I just thought I’d mention a certain matter so you’d not be too frightened when the gentlemen come to-morrow,” the younger man said somewhat irresolutely, and throwing away the ax with which he had been splitting wood, he straightened up from his work as if preparing to ward off an attack.

“What’s that?—‘gentlemen’ to see us? What kind of ‘gentlemen’? From the courts? For the execution of a mortgage?” the questions fairly rushed from the fear tightened throat of the old man, who, though in his sixties, was still stalwart.

“Why, what are you thinking of?” the young man waved his hand, rather glad that his father had immediately suspected something evil and that, therefore, his report would affect him the less. “The German