way, a shrewd investor, in fact. His uncle, General Waite, who left him
the money, was a connection of my grandmother's."

"The Miser is a cousin then?"

"Not on your tintype, my friend. Old Knight was a nephew of the
general's wife, you see."

"And there were no other heirs?" asked the Candy Man.

"There was an own nephew, I have heard, who mysteriously disappeared
shortly before the general's death. I have heard my grandmother mention
it, but it was long before my day. Why are you interested?"

Even to himself the Candy Man could not quite explain his interest in
this sad and lonely man, except that, as he had told Miss Bentley in
their first and only conversation, he had a habit of getting interested
in people. For example, in the house where he roomed there was a young
couple who just now engaged his sympathies. The husband, a teacher in
the Boys' High School, had been ill with typhoid, and the little wife's
anxious face haunted the Candy Man. The husband was recovering, but of
course the long illness had overtaxed their small resources, and--But,
oh dear! weren't there hundreds of such cases? What was the good of
thinking about it! Yet suppose there were a Fairy Godmother Society?

The Candy Man was a foolish dreamer, and his favourite dream in these
days was of some time sitting beside the Little Red Chimney hearth, and
discussing the Fairy Godmother Society with Miss Bentley. These bright
dreams, however, were interspersed by moments of extreme depression, in
which he cursed the day upon which he had become a Candy Man; moments