Mrs. Condiment sighed and wiped her eyes under her spectacles.

The worthy minister, now seriously alarmed, came to him and said: "My dear, dear major, do not be unjust--consider. She is an old

faithful domestic, who has been in your service forty years--whom you

could not live without! I say it under advisement--whom you could not

live without!"

"Hang it, sir, nor live with! Think of her helping to free the

prisoners! Actually taking Black Donald--precious Father Gray!--into

their cell and leaving them together to hatch their--beg you

pardon--horrid plots!"

"But, sir, instead of punishing the innocent victim of his deception,

let us be merciful and thank the Lord, that since those men were

delivered from prison, they were freed without bloodshed; for remember

that neither the warden nor any of his men, nor any one else has been

personally injured."

"Hang it, sir, I wish they had cut all our throats to teach us more

discretion!" broke forth Old Hurricane.

"I am afraid that the lesson so taught would have come too late to be

useful!" smiled the pastor.

"Well, it hasn't come too late now! Mrs. Condiment, mum, mind what I

tell you! As soon as we return to Hurricane Hall, send in your accounts

and seek a new home! I am not going to suffer myself to be set at

naught any longer!" exclaimed Old Hurricane, bringing down his cane

with an emphatic thump.

The sorely troubled minister was again about to interfere, when, as the

worm if trodden upon, will turn, Mrs. Condiment herself spoke up,

saying: "Lor, Major Warfield, sir, there were others deceived besides me, and

as for myself, I never can think of the risk I've run without growing

cold all over!"

"Serves you right, mum, for your officiousness, and obsequiousness and

toadying to--precious Mr. Gray!--serves you doubly right for famishing

me at my own table!"

"Uncle!" said Capitola, "'Honor bright! Fair play is a jewel!' If you

and I, who have seen Black Donald before, failed to recognize that

stalwart athlete in a seemingly old and sickly man, how could you

expect Mrs. Condiment to do so, who never saw him but once in her life,

and then was so much frightened that she instantly fainted?"

"Pah! pah! pah! Cap, hush! You, all of you, disgust me, except Black

Donald! I begin to respect him! Confound if I don't take in all the

offers I have made for his apprehension, and at the very next

convention of our party I'll nominate him to represent us in the

National Congress; for, of all the fools that ever I have met in my

life, the people of this county are the greatest! And fools should at

least be represented by one clever man--and Black Donald is the very

fellow! He is decidedly the ablest man in this congressional district."




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