too, because I've some accounts of my own I want to settle."

Matilda was near tears, for such a scene as this frightened her.
Poor old Mr. Hosmer tried to bustle forward and enter into the
conversation; but the husky dairyman just brushed him aside as though
he were no more than a child.

"I'm not talking to you about it, Mr. Hosmer," he went on to say,
almost brutally; "it's your wife I do business with. I'll be looking
to her to settle my account. And if what I hear honest folks a-sayin'
is near true, the sooner she gets rid of her disreputable brother the
better for all concerned."

Matilda's eyes flashed.

"You need not add insult to injury, Mr. Bernard," she flashed, showing
a little touch of spirit that Hugh hardly believed she possessed. "He
is the only living tie to bind me with my long past childhood. We were
once very fond of each other; and now that poor Luther has fallen
sick, and fears he has not long to live, I mean to stand by him, no
matter how people talk."

Brother Lu looked as though this sort of thing gave him something akin
to joy. He even shot a tender glance across at Matilda, and then a
triumphant one toward the two boys, as though to say: "Didn't I tell
you my sister had a tender heart?"

Then he got on his feet. He really seemed a trifle weak, showing that
he had actually been under the weather latterly.