“Please don’t speak of him again, Judge,” said Mr. Norton, sadly. “We shall not trouble him for his declaration in this matter. You are my nephew’s counsel. May I ask who has acted as his guardian?”
“Dr. Randall Manning, one of our most distinguished and wealthy physicians. He sent him to an academy at Ogleport, in this State, and Barnaby came from there this morning by telegraph.”
“I wish I had,” remarked Bar, “instead of by that slow old stage-coach and that railway train.”
“Fact!” exclaimed the Judge. “I believe I’m getting excited. Anyhow, Mr. Norton, your nephew is in excellent hands, and I may say we are all deeply interested in his fortune.”
“Please include me in that list,” interposed George Brayton. “I owe Bar about as much as one man can owe another.”
“How is that?” asked Norton.
“How?” said George. “Why, he saved my sister’s life last Saturday, and, I think likely, all the rest of our party, by his coolness and courage and good conduct. I’ll tell you all about it some day. All I want to say now, Mr. Norton, is that not only you find your nephew in good company, but he’s a relative any man may be proud to find.”
Whatever of pecuniary loss or disappointment Bar Vernon’s “discovery” was likely to bring to either of those two men, they seemed to be equally glad to find him, only Mr. Norton exclaimed:
“Poor Lydia! If she could only have lived till now!”
And then he added: