Sam entered the kitchen barefooted, having left his shoes at the back
door. The tea was drawn, and the three sat down to their supper of
bacon, bread and butter, and apple-sauce. Gilbert and his mother ate and
drank in silence, but Sam's curiosity was too lively to be restrained.

"I say, how did Roger go?" he asked.

Mary Potter looked up, as if expecting the question to be answered, and
Gilbert said:--

"He took the lead, and kept it."

"O cracky!" exclaimed the delighted Sam.

"Then you think it's a good bargain, Gilbert. Was it a long chase? Was
he well tried?"

"All right, mother. I could sell him for twenty dollars advance--even to
Joel Ferris," he answered.

He then gave a sketch of the afternoon's adventures, to which his mother
listened with a keen, steady interest. She compelled him to describe the
stranger, Fortune, as minutely as possible, as if desirous of finding
some form or event in her own memory to which he could be attached; but
without result.

After supper Sam squatted upon a stool in the corner of the fireplace,
and resumed his reading of "The Old English Baron," by the light of the
burning back-log, pronouncing every word to himself in something between