"Repentance!" cried Uncle Jack, bounding up as if ha had been shot. "And do you think I have a heart of stone, of pumice-stone? Do you think I don't repent? I have done nothing but repent; I shall repent to my dying day."
"Then there is no more to be said, Jack," cried my father, softening, and holding out his hand.
"Yes!" cried Mr. Tibbets, seizing the hand and pressing it to the heart he had thus defended from the suspicion of being pumice, "yes,—that I should have trusted that dunderheaded, rascally curmudgeon Peck; that I should have let him call it 'The Capitalist,' despite all my convictions, when the Anti—'"
"Pshaw!" interrupted my father, drawing away his hand.
"John," said my mother, gravely, and with tears in her voice, "you forget who delivered you from prison; you forget whom you have nearly consigned to prison yourself; you forg—"
"Hush, hush!" said my father, "this will never do; and it is you who forget, my dear, the obligations I owe to Jack. He has reduced my fortune one half, it is true; but I verily think he has made the three hearts, in which he my real treasures, twice as large as they were before. Pisistratus, my boy, ring the bell."
"My dear Kitty," cried Jack, whimperingly, and stealing up to my mother, "don't be so hard on me; I thought to make all your fortunes,—I did indeed."
Here the servant entered.
"See that Mr. Tibbets's things are taken up to his room, and that there is a good fire," said my father.
"And," continued Jack, loftily, "I will, make all your fortunes yet. I have it here!" and he struck his head.