"Now, what a foolish question that is I'd like to know who built his
greenhouses, ef I didn't?"

"He is pretty well off, ain't he?"

Saul laughed with that satisfied arrogance of ignorant men when they
are asked a question they can answer easily.

"I rather guess he is; that is, ef you call three, four, five millions
well off. I don't know how it strikes you" (with a withering sarcasm),
"but _I_ call Arthur Farnham pretty well fixed."

These words ran in Maud's brain with a ravishing sound. She built upon
them a fantastic palace of mist and cloud. When at last her dress was
finished and she started, after three unsuccessful attempts, to walk to
Algonquin Avenue, she was in no condition to do herself simple justice.
She hardly knew whether she wanted a place in the library, a clerkship
at Washington, or the post of amanuensis to the young millionaire. She
was confused by his reception of her; his good-natured irony made her
feel ill at ease; she was nervous and flurried; and she felt, as she
walked away, that the battle had gone against her.




III.


THE WIDOW AND HER DAUGHTER.