"Why, Auntie Sue, I wrote you nearly a year ago that Brian Kent was dead." "Yes, I know; but he was not--that is, he is not.

But the Brian Kent your detectives were hunting was--I mean--is." Homer T.Ward looked at his old teacher as though he feared she had suddenly lost her mind.
"It is like this, Homer," Auntie Sue explained: "A few days after your detective, Mr.Ross, called on me, this stranger appeared in the neighborhood.

No one dreamed that he was Brian Kent, because, you see, he was not a bit like the description." "Full beard, I suppose ?" commented the banker, grimly.
"Yes: and every other way," continued Auntie Sue.

"And he has been working so hard all winter; and everybody in the country respects and loves him so; and he is one of the best and truest men I ever knew; and he is planning and working to pay back every cent he took; and I cannot--I will not--let you send him to prison now." The lovely old eyes were fixed on the banker's face with sweet anxiety.
Homer T.Ward was puzzled.

Strange human problems are often presented to men in his position; but, certainly, this was the strangest;--his old teacher pleading for his absconding clerk who was supposed to be dead.
At last he said, with gentle kindness: "But, why did you come to tell me about him, Auntie Sue?
He is safe enough if no one knows who he is." "That is it!" she cried.