“Come?  Of course they will.  They’ll all rush, the first thing, to see how you take it.  Why, such a thing as this is a godsend to ’em.  They’ll have something to talk about for a week.  And they’ll all try to discover if you mean to sell out at auction.  Oh, they will be so sorry!” said the old lady, imitating imaginary callers; “’and, my dear Mrs. Newt, what are you going to do?  And to think of your being obliged to leave this lovely house!’ Come?—­did you ever know the vultures not to come to a carcass?”

Mrs. Nancy Newt looked appalled; and so energetic was Mrs. Dagon in her allusion to vultures and carcass, that her niece unconsciously put to her nose the smelling-bottle she held in her hand.

“Oh, it’s dreadful!” she sighed, rocking and smelling, and with the tears oozing from her eyes.

“Fiddle!  I won’t hear of it.  ’Tain’t dreadful.  It’s nothing at all.  You must go out with me and make calls this very morning.  It’s none of your business.  If your husband chooses to fail, let him fail.  He can’t expect you to take to making shirts, and to give up society.  I shall call at twelve in the carriage; and, mind, don’t you look red and mopy.  Remember.  So, good-morning!  And, May, I want to speak to you.”

They left Mrs. Newt rocking and weeping, with the smelling-bottle at her nose, and descended to the solemn parlor.

“What brought this about?” asked Mrs. Dagon, as she closed the door.  “Your mother is in such a state that it does no good to talk to her.  Where’s Abel?”

“Aunt Dagon, I have my own opinion, but I know nothing.  I suppose Abel is down town.”

“What’s your opinion?”

May paused for a moment, and then said: 

“From what I have heard drop from father during the last few years since Abel has been in the business, I don’t believe that Abel has helped him—­”

“Exactly,” interrupted Mrs. Dagon, as if soliloquizing; “and why on earth didn’t the fellow marry Hope Wayne, or that Southern girl, Grace Plumer?”

“Abel marry Hope Wayne?” asked May, with an air and tone of such utter amazement and incredulity that Aunt Dagon immediately recovered from her abstraction, and half smiled.

“Why, why not?” said she, with equal simplicity.

May Newt knew Hope Wayne personally, and she had also heard of her from Gabriel Bennet.  Indeed, Gabriel had no secrets from May.  The whole school story of his love had been told to her, and she shared the young man’s feeling for the woman who, as a girl, had so utterly enthralled his imagination.  But Gabriel’s story of school life also included her brother Abel, and what she heard of the boy agreed with what she knew and felt of the man.

“I presume,” said May Newt, loftily, “that Hope Wayne would be as likely to marry Aaron Burr as Abel Newt.”

Mrs. Dagon looked at her kindly, and with amused admiration.

“Well, May, at any rate I congratulate Gabriel Bennet.”