"My dear, dear major, do not be unjust—consider. She is an old faithful domestic, who has been in your service forty years—whom you could not live without! I say it under advisement—whom you could not live without!"
"Hang it, sir, nor live with! Think of her helping to free the prisoners! Actually taking Black Donald—precious Father Gray!—into their cell and leaving them together to hatch their—beg you pardon—horrid plots!"
"But, sir, instead of punishing the innocent victim of his deception, let us be merciful and thank the Lord, that since those men were delivered from prison, they were freed without bloodshed; for remember that neither the warden nor any of his men, nor any one else has been personally injured."
"Hang it, sir, I wish they had cut all our throats to teach us more discretion!" broke forth Old Hurricane.
"I am afraid that the lesson so taught would have come too late to be useful!" smiled the pastor.
"Well, it hasn't come too late now! Mrs. Condiment, mum, mind what I tell you! As soon as we return to Hurricane Hall, send in your accounts and seek a new home! I am not going to suffer myself to be set at naught any longer!" exclaimed Old Hurricane, bringing down his cane with an emphatic thump.
The sorely troubled minister was again about to interfere, when, as the worm if trodden upon, will turn, Mrs. Condiment herself spoke up, saying:
"Lor, Major Warfield, sir, there were others deceived besides me, and as for myself, I never can think of the risk I've run without growing cold all over!"
"Serves you right, mum, for your officiousness, and obsequiousness and toadying to—precious Mr. Gray!—serves you doubly right for famishing me at my own table!"
"Uncle!" said Capitola, "'Honor bright! Fair play is a jewel! If you and I, who have seen Black Donald before, failed to recognize that stalwart athlete in a seemingly old and sickly man, how could you expect Mrs. Condiment to do so, who never saw him but once in her life, and then was so much frightened that she instantly fainted?"