CHAPTER XII.
THE OLD MILL.
It was a sad group that sat in the pleasant kitchen that bright September morning.

The good farmer sat before his empty desk, seeming half stupefied by the blow which had fallen so suddenly upon him, while his wife hung about him, reproaching herself bitterly for not having put him on his guard the night before.

Hildegarde moved restlessly about the kitchen, setting things to rights, as she thought, though in reality she hardly knew what she was doing, and had already carefully deposited the teapot in the coal-hod, and laid the broom on the top shelf of the dresser.

Her heart was full of wrath and sorrow,--fierce anger against the miserable wretch who had robbed his benefactor; sympathy for her kind friends, brought thus suddenly from comfort to distress.

For she knew now that the money which Simon had stolen had been drawn from the bank only two days before to pay off the mortgage on the farm.
"I shouldn't ha' minded the money," Farmer Hartley was saying, even now, "if I'd ha' been savin' it jest to spend or lay by.