Page:David Alden's Daughter.djvu/212

192 Arrived, Dolly was welcomed by her uncle, to whom she at once confided her charge, and received in return no measured praise and commendation.

"Your father says it is your own dowry, lass," remarked the uncle, folding up his brother's letter. "So let us see to what it amounts, and place it in safety."

The china, the books, the stuffs, and the household gear were released from the boxes and barrels, and then the poor old arm-chair was ripped up, and the fine old family plate, brought from England by the major's father, the brocades and silks that had been treasures of Dolly's grandmother, and still waited for occasions grand enough to shape them into robes, a casket of hereditary jewels, and finally the title-deeds of property both in the Old and the New World, were all produced; and Dolly told of the perils the poor chair had passed on board ship, and how it had fallen down the companionway, and the silver coffee-pot had peeped out and nearly betrayed the whole secret, and how she had protected it and cobbled it up, and how she had been glad to be left on board by the retreating crew that she might not abandon the charge her father had confided to her.

"And now, uncle," said she, in conclusion, "I have promised, if you and my father approve, to marry John Belknap; and he never suspected a word of all this."

"In truth, that is the most wonderful part of the story," cried jolly old Ralph Cathcart. "Not