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“I wish they were only half as grateful now,” he said, after a pause.

“Tom,” said Matty, eagerly, “who was that notary?”

“I thought of that, too,” said Tom. “There is no doubt who it was. It was old Gilbert; you must remember his sign, just below Faulkner’s on the avenue. But in the first place, Gilbert died just after our taking Richmond. In the second place, he never knew what the papers were–and he executed twenty such sets of papers every day, very likely. All he could say, at the very best, would be that at such a time father brought in an old Spaniard and two or three other greasers, and that he took their acknowledgments of something.”

“I do not know that, Tom,” said the girl, without flinching at his mannish information. “If notaries in Washington are anything like notaries in novels, that man kept a record or register of his work. If he was not very unlike everybody else who lives and works here, he left a very destitute widow when he died. Tom, I shall go after church and hunt up the Widow Gilbert. I shall ask her for her husband’s books, and shall tell her why I want them.”

The girl dropped her voice and said: “Tom, I shall ask her IN HIS NAME.”

“God grant it does any good, dear girl,” said he. “Far be it from me to say that you shall not try–“

But here he stopped speaking, for he felt Matty’s arm shake in his, and her whole frame trembled. Tom had only to keep his eyes before him to see why.

Mr. Greenhithe, Matty’s old admirer, the clerk who had been dismissed for stealing, was just entering the church, and even touched his hat to her as she went by.

Tom resisted his temptation to thrash him then and there. He said,–

“Matty, I believe I will tackle that man!”

“Oh, Tom!”

“Yes, Matty, I can keep my temper, and he cannot keep his. He has one advantage over most knaves, that he is not only a knave of the first water, but he is sometimes a fool, too. If it were only decent and right to take him into Downing’s saloon, and give him just one more glass of whiskey than the blackguard would care to pay for, I could get at his whole story.”

“But, Tom, I thought you were so sure the Navy had the papers!”

“Well! well!” said Tom, a little annoyed, as eager people are when other eager people remember their words against them. “I was sure–I was wholly sure–till I left Eben Ricketts. But after that–well, of course, we ought to pull every string.”

“Tom!” This with a terrible gulp.

“Tom, you don’t think I ought to speak with him!”

“Matty!”

“Why, Tom, yes; if he does know–if he is holding this up in terror, Tom, I could make him do what I chose once, Tom. You don’t think I ought to try?”

“Matty, if you ever speak to that snake again, I will thrash him within an inch of his life, and I will never say a word to you as long as you live.”

“That’s my dear Tom!” And, hidden as they were, and crying as she was under her veil, she flung her arms around him and kissed him.

“All the same,” said Tom, after he had kissed her again and again,–“all the same, I shall find out, after church, where the snake is staying. I shall go to the hotel and take a cigar. I shall offer him one, and he is so mean and stingy that he will take it. Perhaps this may be one of his fool days. Perhaps somebody else will treat him to the whiskey. No, Matty! honor bright, I will not, though that ten cents might give us all a Merry Christmas. Honor bright, I will not treat. But I am not a saint, Matty! If anybody else treats, I must not be expected to be far away.”