“What I ’ve got?  Wall, I ‘ll tell y’ what I’ve got:  I ’ve got the biggest pickerel that’s been ketched in this pond for these ten year.  An’ I ‘ve got somethin’ else besides the pickerel.  When I come to cut him open, what do you think I faound in his insides but this here ring o’ yourn,”—­and he showed the one Maurice had lost so long before.  There it was, as good as new, after having tried Jonah’s style of housekeeping for all that time.  There are those who discredit Jake’s story about finding the ring in the fish; anyhow, there was the ring and there was the pickerel.  I need not say that Jake went off well paid for his pickerel and the precious contents of its stomach.  Now comes the chief event of the evening.  I went early by special invitation.  Maurice took me into his library, and we sat down together.

“I have something of great importance,” he said, “to say to you.  I learned within a few days that my cousin Laura is staying with a friend in the next town to this.  You know, doctor, that we have never met since the last, almost fatal, experience of my early years.  I have determined to defy the strength of that deadly chain of associations connected with her presence, and I have begged her to come this evening with the friends with whom she is staying.  Several letters passed between us, for it was hard to persuade her that there was no longer any risk in my meeting her.  Her imagination was almost as deeply impressed as mine had been at those alarming interviews, and I had to explain to her fully that I had become quite indifferent to the disturbing impressions of former years.  So, as the result of our correspondence, Laura is coming this evening, and I wish you to be present at our meeting.  There is another reason why I wish you to be here.  My little boy is not far from the—­age at which I received my terrifying, almost disorganizing shock.  I mean to have little Maurice brought into the presence of Laura, who is said to be still a very handsome woman, and see if he betrays any hint of that peculiar sensitiveness which showed itself in my threatening seizure.  It seemed to me not impossible that he might inherit some tendency of that nature, and I wanted you to be at hand if any sign of danger should declare itself.  For myself I have no fear.  Some radical change has taken place in my nervous system.  I have been born again, as it were, in my susceptibilities, and am in certain respects a new man.  But I must know how it is with my little Maurice.”

Imagine with what interest I looked forward to this experiment; for experiment it was, and not without its sources of anxiety, as it seemed to me.  The evening wore along; friends and neighbors came in, but no Laura as yet.  At last I heard the sound of wheels, and a carriage stopped at the door.  Two ladies and a gentleman got out, and soon entered the drawing room.