Mr. Newt clenched his teeth and struck his fist upon the table.

“Not a cent shall they have from me!” cried he.  “What the devil does a girl mean, by this kind of thing?”

Abel was not discomposed.  He did not clench his teeth or strike his fist.

“I tell you what they can do, father,” said he.

His father looked at him inquiringly.

“They can take Mr. and Mrs. Tom Witchet to board.”

Mr. Newt remembered every thing he had said of Mr. Van Boozenberg.  But of late, his hair was growing very gray, his brow very wrinkled, his expression very anxious and weary.  When he remembered the old banker, it was with no self-reproach that he himself was now doing what, in the banker’s case, he had held up to Abel’s scorn.  It was only to remember that the wary old man had shut down the portcullis of the bank vaults, and that loans were getting to be almost impossible.  His face darkened.  He swore a sharp oath.  “That—­old villain!”

CHAPTER XLII.

CLEARING AND CLOUDY.

It was summer again, and Aunt Martha sat sewing in the hardest of wooden chairs, erect, motionless.  Yet all the bleakness of the room was conquered by the victorious bloom of Amy’s cheeks, and the tender maidenliness of Amy’s manner, and the winning, human, sympathetic sweetness which was revealed in every word and look of Amy, who sat beside her aunt, talking.

“Amy, Lawrence Newt has been here.”

The young woman looked almost troubled.

“No, Amy, I know you did not tell him,” said Aunt Martha.  “I was all alone here, as usual, and heard a knock.  I cried, ‘Who’s there?’ for I was afraid to open the door, lest I should see some old friend.  ’A friend,’ was the reply.  My knees trembled, Amy.  I thought the time had come for me to be exposed to the world, that the divine wrath might be fulfilled in my perfect shame.  I had no right to resist, and said, ‘Come in!’ The door opened, and a man entered whom I did not at first recognize.  He looked at me for a moment kindly—­so kindly, that it seemed to me as if a gentle hand were laid upon my head.  Then he said, ’Martha Darro.’  ‘I am ready,’ I answered.  But he came to me and took my hand, and said, ‘Why, Martha, have you forgotten Lawrence Newt?’”

She stopped in her story, and leaned back in her chair.  The work fell from her thin fingers, and she wept—­soft tears, like a spring rain.

“Well?” said Amy, after a few moments, and her hand had taken Aunt Martha’s, but she let it go again when she saw that it helped her to tell the story if she worked.

“He said he had seen you at the window one day, and he was resolved to find out what brought you into Front Street.  But before he could make up his mind to come, he chanced to see me at the same window, and then he waited no longer.”

The tone was more natural than Amy had ever heard from Aunt Martha’s lips.  She remarked that the severity of her costume was unchanged, except that a little strip of white collar around the throat somewhat alleviated its dense gloom.  Was it Amy’s fancy merely that the little line of white was symbolical, and that she saw a more human light in her aunt’s eyes and upon her face?