"
"Dear me, yes; but I have been a man so long, and at
Gem City nobody calls me Bruce, but my mother and Lizzy.
So I said `Mr. Kuypers,' forgetting that I had ever been
a boy. But now I am in Washington again, I shall
remember that things change here very fast in ten years.
And yet not so fast as they change at the mines."
And now everybody was at ease. How well Mrs.
Molyneux recalled to herself what she would not
speak of that Christmas Day of which Mr. Kuypers told his
story! It was in their young married life. She had her
father and mother to dine with her, and the event was
really a trial in her young experience. And then, just
as the old folks were expected, her husband came dashing
in and had asked her to put dinner a little later because
he had had this good news for the poor Widow Chappell,
and she had to tell her father and mother, when they
came, that they must all wait for his return.
The Widow Chappell was one of those waifs who seem
attracted to Washington by some fatal law. It had been
two or three months before that Mr. Molyneux had been
asked to hunt her up and help her. A letter had come,
asking him to do this, from Mrs. Fales, in Roxbury, and
Mrs. Fales had sent money for the Chappells. But the
money had gone in back rent, and shoes, and the rest, and
the wolf was very near the Chappells' door, when the
telegraph announced the "Macedonian.
Pages:
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240