“And as much more in unregistered railroad bonds. They were perfectly good, too—and there must be a lot of dividends due upon them. Oh, a fortune indeed!” groaned Ruth, in conclusion.
“I can’t believe it,” repeated her astonished sister.
“I can believe it—very easily,” Ruth retorted. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell Agnes that all that fortune they had lost belonged to Mrs. Eland and Miss Pepperill. But Agnes said:
“But Neale could not possibly have known it was good.”
“Oh! Neale!” exclaimed Ruth, exasperated.
“You don’t really believe he would do anything wrong, do you, Ruthie?” queried Agnes, pleadingly.
“He did enough wrong when he carried that book away with him to Tiverton.”
“But I let him have the book,” Agnes confessed.
“He had no right to go off with it,” the other said stubbornly. “And when he brought it back, why did he throw it down there on the porch in that careless manner?”
“Of course he didn’t know the money was good,” Agnes repeated, trying to bolster up her own shaking faith in Neale O’Neil.