“And if ever Gifted makes a book,—­don’t say anything about it, Mr. Gridley, for goodness’ sake, for he wouldn’t have anybody know it, only I can’t help thinking that some time or other he will print a book,—­and if he does, I know whose name he’ll put at the head of it,—­’Dedicated to B. G., with the gratitude and respect—­’ There, now, I had n’t any business to say a word about it, and it’s only jest in case he does, you know.  I’m sure you deserve it all.  You’ve helped him with the best of advice.  And you’ve been kind to me when I was in trouble.  And you’ve been like a grandfather” [Master Gridley winced,—­why could n’t the woman have said father?—­that grand struck his ear like a spade going into the gravel] “to those babes, poor little souls! left on my door-step like a couple of breakfast rolls,—­only you know it’s the baker left then.  I believe in you, Mr. Gridley, as I believe in my Maker and in Father Pemberton,—­but, poor man, he’s old, and you won’t be old these twenty years yet.”

[Master Gridley shook his head as if to say that was n’t so, but felt comforted and refreshed.]

“You’ve got to help Myrtle Hazard again.  You brought her home when she come so nigh drowning.  You got the old doctor to go and see her when she come so nigh being bewitched with the magnetism and nonsense, whatever they call it, and the young doctor was so nigh bein’ crazy, too.  I know, for Nurse Byloe told me all about it.  And now Myrtle’s gettin’ run away with by that pesky Minister Stoker.  Cynthy Badlam was here yesterday crying and sobbing as if her heart would break about it.  For my part, I did n’t think Cynthy cared so much for the girl as all that, but I saw her takin’ on dreadfully with my own eyes.  That man’s like a hen-hawk among the chickens, first he picks up one, and then he picks up another.  I should like to know if nobody but young folks has souls to be saved, and specially young women!”

“Tell me all you know about Myrtle Hazard and Joseph Bellamy Stoker,” said Master Gridley.

Thereupon that good lady related all that Miss Badlam had imparted to her, of which the reader knows the worst, being the interview of which the keen spinster had been a witness, having followed them for the express purpose of knowing, in her own phrase, what the minister was up to.

It is not to be supposed that Myrtle had forgotten the discreet kindness of Master Gridley in bringing her back and making the best of her adventure.  He, on his part, had acquired a kind of right to consider himself her adviser, and had begun to take a pleasure in the thought that he, the worn-out and useless old pedant, as he had been in the way of considering himself, might perhaps do something even more important than his previous achievement to save this young girl from the dangers that surrounded her.  He loved his classics and his old books; he took an interest, too, in the newspapers and periodicals that brought the