“What did she want with oak wood?” cried Mr. Stillinghast, becoming more impatient every moment.

“To burn, I presume,” replied the young man, paring off a chew of tobacco; “but the fact is, sir, we didn’t ask her.  We always take it for granted that people buy wood to burn.”

“Who does know any thing about it?” was the sharp response.

“The sawyer, I fancy, if he can be found.  I have not seen him about to-day, however,” said the young man, with a broad grin, which he speedily changed, when his strange visitor burst out with,

“When he comes, send him to me.—­My name is Stillinghast.”

“Certainly, Mr. Stillinghast, certainly.  Excuse me, sir, for not recognizing you,” stammered the clerk.

“I’m determined,” muttered the old man, going out and slamming to the door, without noticing the young man’s apologies, “I’m determined to sift this matter.  If I had a feeling of humanity left, it was for that girl—­papist though she be; if I loved or cared a tithe for any living being, it was she!  I intended—­but never mind what I intended.  She has been doing wrong and I’ll find it out.  She has tried to deceive me, but I’ll convince her that she has mistaken her dupe.  Where did she get the money to buy wood with?” And at that thought, such a fierce, sudden suspicion tore through that old, half ossified heart, that he paused on the flags, and gasped for breath.  “My God!” he murmured, “has she robbed me?” And during the remainder of that miserable day, his ledgers were almost neglected.  Foul and ungenerous suspicion held possession of his mind; and inflamed with a malicious anger, he plotted and schemed his revenge until he had defined a plan that well suited his present mood.  “If she plots,” he muttered, rubbing his dry, yellow hands together, with grim delight, “I will counter-plot.  It is not the wrong, but the person who inflicts it, that stings me.  But the serpent’s tooth has been gnawing these many years at my heart—­why complain now?”

But several days passed, and he had obtained no clue to the mystery, which increased his anxiety, and made him more fretful and testy than usual.  He allowed no opportunity to escape, to make May feel his displeasure.  Bitter and contemptuous speeches, coarse allusions to her religion, fault-finding with all she did, and sudden outbursts of unprovoked fury, were now the daily trials of her life.  Trials which were sore temptations, and full of humiliation to a proud, high spirit, like May’s; and sharp were the struggles, and earnest the prayers, and many the scalding tears she shed, ere she subdued the storm of wild and indignant resentment, which swept like whirlwinds through her soul.  But her talisman—­the Cross of Jesus Christ—­was her safeguard.  Its splinters inflicted many a sharp wound; but none so sharp, that the balm it distilled could not heal and beautify them.