This praise evidently delighted the boy. They could have found no more
direct way to win his confidence.
"Nora was my mother's maid from the time she was a mere girl," said he;
"and Thomas sailed with my father many years before I was born."
They were a little surprised to hear him speak so frankly. But Louise
decided to take advantage of the opening afforded her.
"Nora has told us that some great trouble came to them years ago--a
trouble that also affected your own parents. But they do not wish to
talk about it to us."
His face clouded.
"No, indeed," said he. "Their loving old hearts have never recovered
from the blow. Would you like to know their history? It is a sad story,
and pitiful; but I am sure you would understand and appreciate my old
friends better after hearing it."
Their hearts fairly jumped with joy. Would they like to hear the story?
Was it not this very clue which they had been blindly groping for to
enable them to solve the mystery of the Wegg crime? The boy marked their
interest, and began his story at once, while the hearts of the three
girls sang-gladly: "At last--at last!"
CHAPTER XVII.
JOE TELLS OF "THE GREAT TROUBLE."
"As a young man, my father was a successful sea captain," said the boy,
"and, before he was thirty, owned a considerable interest in the ship he
sailed.
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