look of power. When they were off the hill and come to the upper end of shaded Fair Street, Merle advanced to keep pace beside his brother. The latter's rate of speed had increased as they neared the town.

"Hadn't I better take care of our money for us?" he at last asked in a voice oily with solicitude.

"No, sir!"

The "sir" was weighted with so heavy an emphasis that the tactful Merle merely said "Oh!" in a hurt tone.

"I can take care of my own money for me," added the speeding capitalist, seeming to wish that any possible misconception as to the ownership of the hoard might be definitely removed.

"Oh," said Merle again, this being all that with any dignity he could think of to say. They were now passing the quiet acre that had been the scene of the morning's unpleasantness. Their pails, half filled with berries, were still there, but the strangely behaving Wilbur refused to go for them. He eyed the place with disrelish. He would not again willingly approach that spot where he had gone down into the valley of shame. Reminded that the pails were not theirs, he brutally asked what did he care, adding that he could buy a million pails if he took a notion to. But presently he listened to reason, and made reasonable proposals. The Merle twin was to go back to the evil place, salvage the pails, leave them at the Penniman house, and hasten to a certain confectioner's at the heart of the town, where a lavish reward would be at once his. After troubled reflection he consented, and they went their ways. The Merle twin sped to the quiet nook where Jonas Whipple had been put away in 1828, and sped away from there as soon as he had the pails. Not even did he bend a moment above the little new-made grave where lay a part of all that was mortal of Patricia Whipple. He disliked graveyards on principle, and he wished his reward.

Wilbur Cowan kept his quick way down Fair Street. He had been lifted to pecuniary eminence, and incessantly the new wealth pressed upon his consciousness. The markets of the world were at his mercy. There were shop windows outside which he had long been compelled to linger in sterile choosing. Now he could enter and buy, and he was in a hurry to be at it. Something warned him to seize his golden moment on the wing. The day was Saturday, and he was pleasantly thrilled by the unwonted crowds on River Street, which he now entered. Farm horses were tethered thickly along hitching racks and 

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