And so the reader may know what Molly Brownwell had in that package which she put in the buggy seat beside her when she drove down to see the Barclays, that beautiful starry November night. She put the package with her hat and wraps in Jeanette's room, and then came down to the living room where John Barclay sat by the roaring fire in the wide fireplace, with a bundle beside him also. His mother was there, and his daughter took a seat beside him.
"Molly," said Barclay, with a deep sigh, "I sent for you, first, because, of all the people in the world, it is but just that you should be here, to witness what I am doing; and second, because Jane would have had you, and I want you to be with Jeanette when I tell her some things that she must know to-night—she and mother."
He was sitting in a deep easy chair, with one foot—not his lame foot—curled under him, a wiry-looking little gray cat of a man who nervously drummed on the mahogany chair arm, or kept running his hands over the carving, or folding and unfolding them, and twirled his thumbs incessantly as he talked. He smiled as he began:—
"Well, girls, father got off the chair car at Sycamore Ridge this morning, after having had the best sleep he has had in twenty years."
He paused for the effect of his declaration to sink in. Jeanette asked, "Where was the car?"
"What car?" teased the little gray cat.
"Why, our car?"
"My dear, we have no car," he smiled, with the cream of mystery on his lips. Then he licked it off. "I sold the car three weeks ago, when I left the Ridge the last time." He dropped into an eloquent silence, and then went on: "I rode in the chair car to save three dollars. I need it in my business."
His mother's blue eyes were watching him closely. She exclaimed, "John, quit your foolishness. What have you done?"
He laughed as he said: "Mother, I have returned to you poor but honest. My total assets at this minute are seventy-five million dollars' worth of stock of the National Provisions Company, tied up in this bundle on the floor here, and five thousand dollars in the Exchange National Bank of Sycamore Ridge which I have held for thirty years. I sold my State Bank stock last Monday to Gabe Carnine. I have thirty-four dollars and seventy-three cents in my pocketbook, and that is all."