"I think I will return to Boston to-night, Uncle Levi. There's a train at seven. I couldn't eat dinner feeling as I do. Good-bye, I'm going to walk to the station. Will you be good enough to send my traps up to-morrow. Bid Aunt Tilda good-bye, please."
He put out his hand frankly and was gone before Markham realized the situation.
"It was not Lans you were fighting," Matilda sagely remarked later when her brother explained matters to her, "it was his dead father, and Olive Treadwell. You just better write to the boy, I guess, and get him to finish out his visit and reconsider. I tell you flat-footed, Levi, there ain't much give to you when you've worked yourself up, and I must say I like the lad all the better for the way he stood up for his kin. They are his kin, and good or bad, that Treadwell woman has won his affection when we couldn't. And to throw that—that strange boy at his head in that fashion! It wasn't worthy of you, Levi! It was downright shallow and you prating always of justice and sane reasoning!"
What might have happened when Markham had digested his sister's practical remarks was never to be known, for Olive Treadwell, in blind fury, and what she considered righteous indignation, prevented.
Weak and unbalanced, but with a deep-seated belief in her social superiority and worldly knowledge, she sent a letter, by special delivery, to Bretherton, that left Levi incapable of response:
I suppose you have taken this method of degrading my dead brother and me. That one of your humble origin can estimate the impression upon another of such an offer as you made to my nephew is quite beyond expectation. The Hertfords have always been gentlemen and ladies and you would send the last of the race, by the power of your vulgar money, to work among common labourers in order to break his spirit and pride! You are too blind, apparently, to appreciate the honour my brother paid your sister by marrying her. His personal shortcomings could not possibly outweigh the position that he gained for her when she took his name. Through all these years I have suppressed my feeling as to the matter because I have felt that you and I, working together, might place the son of your sister and my brother in a position that would reflect credit upon us both; but since you have failed to recognize your opportunity and, in sordid revenge, have sought to degrade him, I assume all responsibility in the future. I am, comparatively, a poor woman, but hereafter Lansing Treadwell and I will share and share alike. I shall endeavour, to the best that is in me, to prove to him that it is such men as you who hold the world back! Men who over-estimate money and undervalue blood and social position are not to be envied or trusted.
Having read this aloud to Matilda, Levi dropped the closely written sheet to the floor.
"She's got the courage of her convictions," Matilda snapped.
"And an old grudge," Markham returned.
"Well, I will say this for her," Matilda added; "she's upset her kettle of fish and Lans', too."