CHAPTER XXII.
MISS DEBORAH'S EYES ARE OPENED.
Aunt Deborah felt that she had done a good stroke of business. She had lent Ferdinand four hundred and fifty dollars, and received in return a note for five hundred and fifty, secured by a diamond ring worth even more. She plumed herself on her shrewdness, though at times she felt a little twinge at the idea of the exorbitant interest which she had exacted from so near a relative.
"But he said the money was worth that to him," she said to herself in extenuation, "and he's goin' to get two thousand dollars a year. I didn't want to lend the money, I'd rather have had it in the savings bank, but I did it to obleege him."
By such casuistry Aunt Deborah quieted her conscience, and carefully put the ring away among her bonds and mortgages.
"Who'd think a little ring like that should be worth so much?" she said to herself. "It's clear waste of money. But then Ferdinand didn't buy it. It was give to him, and a very foolish gift it was too. Railly, it makes me nervous to have it to take care of. It's so little it might get lost easy."
Aunt Deborah plumed herself upon her shrewdness. It was not easy to get the advantage of her in a bargain, and yet she had accepted the ring as security for a considerable loan without once questioning its genuineness. She relied implicitly upon her nephew's assurance of its genuineness, just as she had relied upon his assertion of relationship. But the time was soon coming when she was to be undeceived.
One day, a neighbor stopped his horse in front of her house, and jumping out of his wagon, walked up to the door and knocked.
"Good-morning, Mr. Simpson," said the old lady, answering the knock herself; "won't you come in?"
"Thank you, Miss Deborah, I can't stop this morning. I was at the post-office just now, when I saw there was a letter for you, and thought I'd bring it along."