"You have meant well, perhaps. I am obliged to you, if such be the case. I
will bear what you have said in mind, and let you know my decision," said
Mr. Brown, delivering a verdict from the bench.

"Just as you please," replied Mr. Ramsay haughtily; and so they parted.

Left to himself, however, Mr. Brown ceased to be judicial, and became
practical. He recalled, as he sat there, a number of circumstances that
had not impressed him favorably in connection with his guest. Mr. Drummond
had borrowed a considerable sum of him, on the ground of delayed
remittances. Mr. Drummond had filled his pockets with his host's Havanas
in the most scandalous fashion, yet never had a cigar. Mr. Drummond had
done a number of ill-bred things that he had not liked,--such as ordering
the carriage to be got ready on his own responsibility, lending valuable
books without so much as asking permission, and the like. The longer Mr.
Brown thought of the late interview, the more uneasy he felt. The paper
had dropped from his hand, and he was still deep in his uncomfortable
meditations, when the door opened, and his daughter ran to him and threw
herself into his arms, crying hysterically, "Oh, popper, popper! Oh! oh!
oh!"

We will extricate the story of what had happened from the sobs and
interruptions to which Mr. Brown had to submit, and preface it with some
account of the relations between Bijou and Mr. Drummond-Plummer or
Plummer-Drummond.

They had met in New York the previous winter, where Mr. Drummond had
suddenly appeared, put up at a fashionable hotel, and, with no other
credentials than his handsome person, good manners, and bold assertions