"It's all right, Mrs. Murdoch," said Jack, at supper. "Bones says he has sold more than two hundred extra copies."
"I'm glad of that," she said, "and I'll tell Mr. Murdoch; but he mustn't read it."
When she did so, he smiled faintly and with an effort feebly responded:
"Thank Mary for me. I suppose they wanted to read about the flood."
Mr. Bones had not seen fit to report to Mary that a baker's dozen of old subscribers had ordered their paper stopped; nor that one angry man with a big club in his hand had inquired for the editor; nor that Deacon Abrams, and the Town Constable, and three other men, and a lawyer had called to see the editor about the robbery at Mrs. McNamara's; nor that the same worthy woman, with her arms akimbo and her bonnet falling back, had fiercely demanded of him:
"Fwhat for did yez print all that about me howlin'? Wudn't ony woman spake, was she bein' robbed and murdhered?"
Bones had pacified Mrs. McNamara only by sitting still and hearing her out, and he would not for anything have mentioned it to Miss Ogden. She therefore had only good news to tell at the house, and Mrs. Murdoch's replies related chiefly to the Union Church Sociable at Judge Edwards's.
"Mr. Murdoch is quiet," she said, "and he may sleep all the time we're gone."
"I'll be on hand to look out for him," said Jack, "I'm not going anywhere."
That reassured them as to leaving home, and Mrs. Murdoch and Mary departed without anxiety; but they had hardly entered the Edwards's house before they found that many other people were very much less placid.