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 curiosity as to Gerald could not retard their eagerness to learn all the facts.

The couple bore every appearance of homely thrift and simplicity of character; of being, in short, precisely the kind of people Touchtone had hoped. It is, perhaps, needless to say that Philip's narrative was only of the circumstances since the hour of departure from the Old Province. Mr. Belmont and his persecution he left till a more convenient season.

"An' you mean to tell me that that poor boy an' you have been shut up here two days? No other soul about the place? An' he sick on your hands half the time?" gasped the distressed Mrs. Obed.

"That's just what I mean," replied Touchtone.

"Never heard such an astonishin' story in my life," repeated Probasco. "What would you 'a' done, though, if you hadn't brought up here? Well, it stumps me; that's all."

"The hand of the Lord's in it, no mistake!" declared Mrs. Obed. "I can't say how welcome you've been to any thing an' to every thing of ours that the old house there's got inside it. You couldn't 'a' better pleased me an' my