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