Page:A New England Tale.djvu/180

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A NEW-ENGLAND TALE.
169

ever she would order it to be sent. Jane went quietly to her own apartment, to make the necessary arrangements; there she soon overheard the low growlings of Mrs. Wilson's angriest voice, communicating, as she inferred from the loud responsive exclamations and whimpering, her engagement to Elvira. Mrs. Wilson's perturbed spirit was not quieted even by this outpouring; and after walking up and down, scolding at the servants and the children, she put on her hat and shawl, and sallied out to a shop, to pay a small debt she owed there. No passion could exclude from her mind for any length of time the memory of so disagreeable a circumstance as the necessity of paying out money. After she had discharged the debt, and the master of the shop had given her the change, he noticed her examining one of the bills he had handed her with a look of scrutiny and some agitation. He said, "I believe that is a good bill, Mrs. Wilson; I was a little suspicious of it too at first; I took it, this morning, from your son David, in payment of a debt that has been standing more than a year. I thought myself so lucky to get any thing, that I was not very particular."

Mrs. Wilson's particularity seemed to have a sudden quietus, for she pushed the bill into the full purse after the others, muttering something about the folly of trusting boys being rightly punished by the loss of the debt.

The fact was, that Mrs. Wilson recognised this bill the moment she saw it, as one of the parcel she