Chapter 11 - Page 2

long is it since you left P--?"

"About six months," replied young Winters.

"Do your friends know where you are?"

"No, indeed! Nor would I have them. So, please bear that in mind. I answered your question almost on the spur of the moment."

"Do you know anything about Mr. Howland or his family?" asked Andrew, without seeming to notice the young man's remark.

"Nothing very particular; only that the old gentleman failed in business about a year ago."

"Ah! How came that?"

"His son Edward broke him up."

"His son Edward?"

"Yes. The old man set him a going in business; but he soon run himself under, and his father into the bargain. He made a terrible bad failure of it."

"Who?"

"Edward Howland. He went off soon after, and they do say, carried his pockets full of money. And I imagine there is some truth in it. He wasn't exactly the clear grit. Some people called him a smooth-faced hypocrite, and I guess they were not very far wrong."

Andrew asked no more questions for some time, but sat, thoughtful, with his face so far turned away from the young man, that its expression could not be seen.

"Mrs. Howland is living, I presume?" said he, at length, in a tone as indifferent as he could assume; but which was, nevertheless, unsteady.

"Yes. She was living when I came away."

Andrew drew a quick breath, and then his laboring chest found relief in a long expiration.

"Poor old man! I'm sorry for him," came from his lips in a few moments afterwards. The tone was half indifferent, yet expressed some sympathy.

"Everybody seems sorry for him," said Winters. "It has broken him down very much. He looks ten years older."

"Is he entirely out of business?" asked Andrew.

"No; he is still going on; but he doesn't appear to do much. I think the family is poor. They've sold their handsome house, and are living in a much smaller one. I heard father say that Mr. Howland had received an extension from his creditors, but that he was too much crippled to be able to go through, and would, in the end, break down entirely."

There was another pause, and then Andrew changed the subject by asking the young man something about himself, and led on the conversation, from step to step, until he got him to mention the fact that he had a sister named Emily.

"Is she older than yourself?" inquired Andrew.

"Oh, yes. Some four years older," was replied.

"Married, of course," said Andrew.

The very effort he made to say this with seeming unconcern gave so unnatural an expression to his tone of voice, that young Winters looked at him