Page:Mistress Madcap Surrenders (1926).pdf/139

 staring, horror-stricken, at Mehitable, and her hands pressed against her heart as though to relieve an unbearable hurt.

"Why—why—Tabbie—what be the matter?" Mehitable sprang to her feet, upsetting the pan of apples she was peeling.

"You say he—he—stole the paper and escaped with it?" Tabitha seemed hardly able to enunciate the words.

"Aye. He proved himself unquestionably a British spy, as I claimed he was." Mehitable went over to the other and put her arms across the thin shoulders, while the others watched with wide eyes. "But why do you care, Tabbie? What be it to you what this Simpson did?"

With a bitter gesture, Tabitha covered her now burning face with her hands. "He—he is my brother!" Her voice was muffled. "My name be Simpson, too!"

Too surprised to speak for a moment, Mehitable stood silent until Mistress Lindsley, laying down her knitting, hurried to Tabitha's side.

"It be true," she said, patting the sobbing girl upon the arm, nodding to Mehitable over the other's bowed head. "Tabbie, when an orphaned baby, was placed in the care o' this aunt in Morris Town, and for convenience' sake, took her name. Her brother kept the name o' Simpson—you did not mention him by name, Hitty dear, or I should