name spoke plain enough for one side of his house, but of what manner of nation was his mother? If she'd been an American, he'd certain have had high cheek bones and reddish skin; if a German, he would have known the language, and Squire Smith declared he didn't; if French (and his having that frog-pond made it seem likely) it would come out in his speech. No— there was nothing he could be but Dutch. And strangest of all, though the man always pricked up his ears when you talked of Holland, he didn't seem to know the first thing about the country when you put him to the point.
Anyhow, as no letters ever came to him from his mother's family in Holland, and as nobody living had ever seen old Higgs, the family couldn't be anything much. Probably Thomas Higgs himself was no better than he should be, for all he pretended to carry himself so strait; and for their parts, the gossips declared, they were not going to trouble their heads about him. Consequently Thomas Higgs and his affairs were never-failing subjects of discussion.
Picture, then, the consternation, among all the good people when it was announced by 'somebody who was there and ought to know,' that the post-boy had that very morning handed Higgs a foreign-looking letter, and the man had "turned as white as the wall; rushed to his factory, talked a bit with one of the head workmen, and without bidding a creature good-bye, was off bag and baggage before you could wink, ma'am."
Mistress Scrubbs, his landlady, was in deep affliction. The dear soul became quite out of breath while speaking of him—'to leave lodgin's in that suddent way
