Old Gringe, who at first has covered up his
face, thinking he sees his defunct brother,
trembling bids her be of good cheer, for she
shall not want for anything while he lives
(no, nor after, he adds to himself). She shall
come, he tells her, and live with them—she
and her child; to which she answers shortly,
that Uncle Gringe is very good to her, and
that she will try and be as useful as she
can.

The family gather round and survey her
curiously; much as the Otaheitan folk did
Captain Cook and his men. Nay, Tom the
Gaum approaches, and, with a stupid reverence,
lays his hand upon her sleeve, making
as though he would worship like the poor
savages. But she at once, and without more
ado, had taken off her bonnet, and was busy
setting things to rights which she pronounced
to be in confusion. Before the end of the
day, she was about as much at home as
though she had been there a whole twelve-
month—nay, had taken up a quiet tone of
influence and authority over the wild crew,
which they fell under at once unresistingly.

"You are as bad as Bosjesmen, dears," she
said, positively calling them dears: "you are
really too old for these child's tricks! Only
consider, Tom, a great strong man like you,
ought to be working and helping your
family!"

"Dig i' the fields, eh? plough, eh?" Tom
asked, with a wise look. "Ecod, I'll think
of it."

Gill the Savage stopped his kicking all at
once, and the Imp's occupation seemed to be
gone. It was only little Jen who stood away
from her, looking at her distrustfully and
keeping close under the shadow of old Father
Gringe. Mrs. Coram knew it well, too.
Having said to herself, as she measured them
all round, "This is to be the only rebel!"
For all that, she was dear Jen, good little
Jen, and what not.

Before the week was out old Gringe
protested that Mary Coram was the greatest
comfort in life to him, and she had wrought
the completest reform in the house's economy.
No riots at night now. She was teaching the
girls women's work, and the men useful
things. A great woman was Coram; but she
had eyes always open, and there was one little
matter that exceedingly mystified her.

"Tom, dear," she said, one day, when
Gringe was rooting up-stairs among the
lumber, "Tom, dear papa seems to take a
deal of trouble about his accounts every
night!"

"They're not accounts," says Tom, "they're
his life and adventures. My eye! they must
be full of dogs and horse-racing; don't un
think so?"

"And, Tom, dear," she went on, "has he
always those fits going to bed of nights?"

"Aye," says Tom,  "Whist, Cousin Coram,
don't tell now on me; but, d'ye know, I
think governor is feared o' being hung! so
does Gill and Sue. Like enough he's got a
body on his mind, aye?" And he walked
away mysteriously on tiptoe.

"Tom has, really, for a fool," she said to
herself, "wonderful powers of observation."

"He must keep it under his pillow," she
said (it was about this time, a good hour past
midnight, and Snorer's Oratorio was being
performed noisily; she standing with a dark
lantern at Old Gringe's bed-side), "he must
keep it under his pillow," she said,
reflecting.

Nor was she out; for, putting in her hand
softly, it rubbed against the key and brought
it out. A long, ancient, quaintly-shaped key
—the key of the buhl cabinet. She went
over softly, and fitted it in carefully. Though
it gave a short shriek in turning, and Old
Gringe moved uneasily in his bed, it did not
stay her; for she knew that old men slept
heavily. Then there were the inside safes,
and the shooting-bolts, and there, at last, was
the writing-book, with its key beside it.
Moving the dark lantern full upon its pages,
she began to read hastily, up and down.
Very curious revelations they were; giving
her, as it seemed, extraordinary satisfaction.
It was the same story written over and over
again (say five or six hundred times) with
unmeaning tautology; begun and written out
afresh nearly every night; for this sort of
confessional practice gave the writer relief
and comfort.

"May heaven in its infinite mercy forgive
me," headed nearly every page. Forgive
him what? a single but heinous transgression.
Here it is in a sentence;—his starved
brother had been the eldest brother, and their
father's pet, and, by ingenious sophistry, prodigious
lying, with terrible calumny, he had
gotten that father to cut off the eldest with
one shilling; to drive him from the door with
a paternal curse, and to brand him publicly.
The poor outcast had gone forth to struggle,
and had, day by day, sunk lower and lower,
until it was ended by starvation and death.

As she read the same story told over and
over again, her face was contorted with fury
and something like grief, not for a few seconds
did she perceive that there was another
person standing beside her looking also at the
book. No other than little Jen. She was
caught in the fact.

"You spy!" said Coram, in a rage, "go to
bed!"

"I shall tell father in the morning," little
Jen answered.

Coram laughed under her breath.

"You had better," she said. "I know a
secret of his. Take care, my girl, don't play
tricks with an old man. You might put him
out of the world." And little Jen went off
to bed, cowed for the time.

Coram's plot, from that night forth, was
wonderfully ingenious. Old Gringe, who had
done murder in her eyes, was fraudulently in
possession of her money and her child's. The