"I should also like to meet Lady Fenwick," said Miss Holbrook.
"I shall be most happy to present you."
"Isn't your name Jed after all?" asked Chester, as he confidingly placed his hand in that of his former guardian.
"You may call me so, Chester; I wish you would."
Miss Maria Holbrook was delighted with her visit. Like many Americans, she had a great respect for English aristocracy, and did not understand that there was considerable difference between titles. It is wonderful how differently she came to regard one whom she had been accustomed to style "that boy Jedediah." She was much pleased with Lady Fenwick's gracious reception, though she found it difficult to think of her as Jed's mother.
I neglected to say in the proper place that Jed did not fail to call, when in Scranton, on his two friends Dr. and Mrs. Redmond, and gave them a cordial invitation to visit his mother and himself if they should ever come to England.
He did not see fit to extend a similar invitation to Mr. and Mrs. Fogson. Misfortune has come to these worthy people. Their mismanagement of the poorhouse had become so notorious that the best citizens of Scranton not only demanded their removal from the poorhouse, but at the next town meeting defeated Squire Dixon for re-election to the position of Overseer of the Poor. Mr. and Mrs. Avery were invited to succeed the Fogsons, but felt that they were entitled to rest and quiet for the balance of their lives. The liberal gifts of Jed and his mother made them independent, and they were willing that younger persons should fill their old positions.
Jed devoted several years to making up the deficiencies in his education. The only disagreeable thing in his change of fortune was his removal from America, but he will probably arrange to spend a portion of his time in his adopted country, to which he feels the attachment of a loyal son. Then he has a link connecting him with it in the frequent visits at Fenwick Hall of his friend Schuyler Roper.
Notwithstanding his accession to the ancestral title and estate, he has not forgotten the fourteen years during which he was known as "Jed, the Poorhouse Boy."