'Poor little thing,' was said by more than one, and hands went up to
eyes unused to tears, for the sight was a touching one--that lovely
child bending over the dead face, and imprinting kisses upon it.
Harold took her away from the body, and lifting her into a chair, kept
by her, as with her arm around his neck, she stood listening to, and
watching, and sometimes imitating the gestures of the men around her.
It was Peterkin who spoke first; standing back so straight that his
immense stomach, with the heavy gold watch-chain hanging across it,
seemed to fill the room, he gave his opinion before any one had a chance
to express theirs.
It was the first time he had been in the house since the morning after
the party, when Arthur had turned him from the door. He had vowed
vengeance against the Tracys then, and kept his vow by spending two
thousand dollars in order to defeat Frank as member of Congress and to
get himself elected as one of the village trustees, and now he had come,
partly out of curiosity to see the woman, and partly to oppose her being
buried by the town, if such a thing were suggested.
'Let them Tracys bury their own dead,' he said to his wife before he
left home, and he said it again in substance now, as with a tremendous
'ahem!' he commenced his speech standing close to little Jerry, who
never took her eyes from him, but watched him with a face which varied
in its expression with every variation in his voice and manner, and
reached its climax when he said: 'I don't b'lieve in saddlin' the town
with a debt we don't orto pay.
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