woman of thirty-six, and one of the "salt of the earth," though her
education, except on Scripture subjects, had been greatly neglected. Felix
McGavonty, the Milesian crony of Louis, had been brought up by the trustee,
and had lived in his family. The good lady wanted to be regarded as the
mother of Felix, and the young man did not fully fall in with the idea.

When Louis recovered the stolen treasure of the jockey, he had applied to
one of the principal losers by the crime, Mr. Lowell Woolridge, then
devoted to horse-racing and yachting, for advice in regard to the disposal
of the plunder. All who had lost any of the money were paid in full; and
the gentleman took a fancy to the young man who consulted him. For the
benefit of his son he discarded racing from his amusements. He invited
Louis and his mother to several excursions in his yacht; and the two
families became very intimate, though they were not of the same social
rank, for Mr. Woolridge was a millionaire and a magnate of the Fifth
Avenue.

The ex-sportsman was the father of a daughter and a son. At fifteen Miss
Blanche was remarkably beautiful, and Louis could not help recognizing the
fact. But he was then a poor boy; and his mother warned him not to get
entangled in any affair of the heart, which had never entered the head of
the subject of the warning. When the missing million came to light, she did
not repeat her warning.

After the Guardian-Mother had sailed on her voyage all-over-the-world, Miss
Blanche took a severe cold, which threatened serious consequences; and the
doctors had advised her father to take her to Orotava, in the Canary
Islands, in his yacht. The family had departed on the voyage; but
before the Blanche, as the white sailing-yacht was called, reached her
destination, she encountered a severe gale, and had a hole stove in her