Finding Nat reading alone on the shady side of the wall, Ned could not resist stopping for a nibble at the forbidden subject.

He had worried Nat for some ten minutes before Dan arrived, and the first words the spider-student heard were these, in Nat's patient, pleading voice, "Don't, Ned! oh, don't! I can't tell you because I don't know, and it's mean of you to keep nagging at me on the sly, when Father Bhaer told you not to plague me.

You wouldn't dare to if Dan was round." "I ain't afraid of Dan; he's nothing but an old bully.

Don't believe but what he took Tom's money, and you know it, and won't tell.

Come, now!" "He didn't, but, if he did, I would stand up for him, he has always been so good to me," said Nat, so earnestly that Dan forgot his spiders, and rose quickly to thank him, but Ned's next words arrested him.
"I know Dan did it, and gave the money to you.