He paused, rather taken aback by the quick glance that was shot at him from the mild blue eyes of his Quaker cousin.
"What does thee call 'not much'?"
"A hundred dollars. I knew they would think it a lot, so I only told Hessie and John fifty, and she gave it to me. Afterwards the fellow I owed it to came down on me for the rest, and wrote to John, Hessie's husband. In the mean time I had got hold of some money in a perfectly fair, honorable way, and sent it to the fellow, and he wrote again to John Franklin and said I had paid up. Then, just because a present one of the Franklin children expected at that time didn't come, they accused me of taking it. They had no earthly reason for supposing it except that I paid fifty dollars in gold for the money-order I sent, and the child's present was fifty dollars in gold."
"And where did thee get the money?"
The question came so quietly and naturally that Neal was taken unawares, and answered before he thought.
"Cynthia Franklin lent it to me. I hated to borrow of a girl, and I made her promise not to tell; afterwards I was glad I had. If they choose to suspect me, I'm not going to lower myself by explaining. And I will ask you, as a particular favor, Cousin William, not to tell any one. I didn't mean to mention it."
His cousin merely bowed, and asked him to continue.
"Well, there's not much more, except that I was suspended from school before that for a scrape I wasn't in, and it put everybody against me, and now I want to get something to do. I am going to support myself, and I thought I'd come to you, as you're my guardian and a cousin, and perhaps you would help me."
"Did thee know that thy brother-in-law, John Franklin, was here within a few days?"
Neal sprang to his feet.