"And he wasn't dead?"
"No; his grandfather adopted him, and gave him his name. He hated Mr. Archdale; he had lost his daughter through him, and he determined to keep the child. So he bribed the nurse to report his death, and persuaded her that it was better for the little fellow to stay with him as his sole heir than follow the fortunes of a haunted man in a wilderness, as America must have been then."
"And do you really believe they never knew of this son of theirs being alive?"
"Mr. Archdale's will, if nothing else, proves that. He had three sons here, you remember; and the colonel, the eldest of these, was named Walter, after the one supposed to have died in England. And, now, you see how this trouble all happened. The will left the greater part of the property to Mr. Archdale's oldest son, Walter, whom he supposed the colonel. But the real oldest son, Walter, was this Mr. Edmonson's father. So that the colonel was really left penniless."
"Yes, yes, now I see," cried Mrs. Eveleigh. "You are like your father when you come to explanations, Elizabeth; a person can always get at what you mean. Now tell me about the portrait, how it came there, and how in the world Mr. Edmonson found it."
"I don't know how it came there," she answered, leading away from the rest of the question by adding, "I have never asked a word about it."
"Elizabeth! you are odd, that's certain. And if Mr. Archdale is never coming here any more, you will never have a chance now to ask him. It's a pity to be so diffident."
Elizabeth smiled a little. "What else did you hear this morning?" she asked.
"Nothing that will interest you, though of course I thought it would when I heard it. Stephen Archdale has come back from his expedition up to the Penobscots with Colonel Pepperell. I wonder how they succeeded?"
"I can tell you that. The Indians have sent word that they will not fight against their brothers of St. John's and New Brunswick. That means that they'll fight for them. We shall have an Indian war with the French one. Think of the horrors of it." She shuddered as she spoke.