The old lady's eyes glistened as she heard these brave words. Standing up for a friend was one of Hugh Morgan's leading traits; and yet, if the truth were known, he did not feel quite so positive as his words would indicate. Things certainly looked dark for the Dugdale boy. Hugh, when he came to think over the whole matter, was bound to be smitten with a grave fear lest the worst come to pass.
"Somehow I seem to have unbounded confidence in your ability to accomplish the impossible, Hugh Morgan," she told him, which words of praise thrilled him to the heart, for he was, after all, human and a boy. "Only good words have come to me about you from all those with whom I converse; for though you may think it odd in an old woman who never had a son of her own, I have all my life been interested in other people's children, particularly boys, seven of whom I have had educated at my expense. Ah! they are either fighting bravely for the life of France just now, or else filling patriots' graves in the battle country."
Hugh asked a few more questions that chanced to occur to him. Then he prepared to take his leave.
"I will think it all over, ma'am," he remarked, as she gave him her dainty if wrinkled hand to press, "and like as not I'll conjure up some scheme by which we can prove whether Owen is innocent or guilty. You see I could be hidden in that room and a trap set, you sending him word to call for a package you wished him to deliver. Then if he went out without even looking into the drawing-room, and yet another of your spoons disappeared, we'd know to a certainty that the trouble lay inside this house."
"Hugh, you give me fresh hope!" she cried, with her eyes glistening as though the tears were trying to flow. "Oh! I would almost pray that something of the sort turned out to be the case, for somehow I have taken a great interest in Owen Dugdale. I mean later on to find an opportunity to meet that wonderful grandfather of his, for somehow I suspect he may turn out to be an exile of note who has taken this means for hiding his identity. I have known eminent Russians to do that from fear of the Czar's secret agents."
Hugh could not but remember how some of the people chose to believe old Mr. Dugdale was keeping in hiding from some far less honorable cause; but of course he did not say anything about that. He went out of Madame Pangborn's big house with a sense of having undertaken a great responsibility; and realizing that an up-hill task lay upon his young shoulders which might test his utmost abilities to carry through.
CHAPTER IV
IN FOR A FROLIC
The high-school boys and girls of Scranton, like those of most other communities, delighted in getting up occasional entertainments so dear to the hearts of young people. A straw-ride late in the summer; it might be a class-spread under difficult conditions on account of the envy of the other grades at school; and once in a while a jolly barn dance was engineered by a committee composed of both sexes.