"It's that horrid Ogre!" cried Helen.

"It isn't right to call Uncle Jabez names," said Ruth, quietly. "He is
greatly to be pitied, I do believe. And just now, particularly so."

"You mean because of the loss of that cash-box?"

"Yes."

"Do you suppose there was much in it?"

"He told me that it contained every cent he had saved in all these
years."

"My!" cried Helen. "Then he must have lost a fortune! He has been a
miser for forty years, so they say."

"I do not know about that," Ruth pursued. "He is harsh and-- and he
seems to be very selfish. He-- he says I can go to school, though."

"Well, I should hope so!" cried Helen.

"But I don't know that I can go," Ruth continued, shaking her head.

"For pity's sake I why not?" asked her friend.

Then, out came the story of the lost trunk. Nor could Ruth keep back
the tears as she told her friend about Uncle Jabez's cruelty.

"Oh, oh, oh!" cried Helen, almost weeping herself. "The mean, mean