decease, in the private room where he and the carpenter were at this moment talking. Certain papers belonging to Colonel Pyncheon, as his grandson distinctly recollected, had been spread out on the table.

Matthew Maule understood the insinuated suspicion.

“My father,” he said, — but still there was that dark smile, making a riddle of his countenance, — ”my father was an honester man than the bloody old Colonel! Not to get his rights back again would he have carried off one of those papers!”

“I shall not bandy words with you,” observed the foreign-bred Mr.

Pyncheon, with haughty composure. “Nor will it become me to resent any rudeness towards either my grandfather or