"I don't wonder at it, if that is your usual style of consolation," said Joe. "Come, Letty; never mind! We all know Agnes has her ways. But I am sorry for your loss. You might better have taken the comfort of this money as you went along, like us. Now it is all gone, and you have had no good of it at all."
"Oh, yes, we have,—a great deal of good," replied Letty, recovering her good humour. "What we gave for the house and our improvements is safe, you know; then John has just paid his life and fire insurance, and we owe no man a cent: so we are in no one's power."
Joe winced a little at this. He had been dunned that very day by Carr the builder, who declared that he would wait on him no longer.
"There is Mr. Trescott coming in," said he, willing to change the subject. "Shall I call John?"
"Do!" said Letty. "And Joe, don't say a word to De Witt: he feels badly enough now."
"Not I," said Joe. "I am no hand to shy stones at a lame dog."
He went off whistling, and came back with John before Mr. Trescott had done greeting Letty and Agnes.
"I want to tell you one thing, Caswell," said Mr. Trescott, at once. "I don't believe Beckman has intended to act dishonestly. He is a thick-headed man, and utterly unfit for the business he undertook; but I do not believe he meant to wrong any one."
"I don't see what difference that makes," said Joe. "If the money is lost, it is lost; and that is all about it."
"I beg your pardon, Emerson; it does make a great deal of difference," said John. "One of the hardest things to me in the whole affair was the thought that a man who was a member of the church, and so active too, should have laid a plan to rob others. I felt like David:—If it were an enemy, 'I could have borne it.' You have taken a great load off my mind, Mr. Trescott. But is it true that he has gone to Europe?"