evening I wanted to talk to you about something more important. The
'Tribune' money article says the Dan and Beersheba Railroad is not
really earning its dividends. What am I to do about that, I should like
to know?"

"Draw your dividends, with a mind conscious of rectitude, though the
directors rage and the 'Tribune' imagine a vain thing," Farnham
answered, and the talk was of stocks and bonds for an hour afterward.

When dinner was over, the three were seated again in the library. The
financial conversation had run its course, and had perished amid the
arid sands of reference to the hard times and the gloomy prospects of
real estate. Miss Alice, who took no part in the discussion, was
reading the evening paper, and Farnham was gratifying his eyes by
gazing at the perfect outline of her face, the rippled hair over the
straight brows, and the stout braids that hung close to the graceful
neck in the fashion affected by school-girls at that time.

A servant entered and handed a card to Alice. She looked at it and
passed it to her mother.

"It is Mr. Furrey," said the widow. "He has called upon _you_."

"I suppose he may come in here?" Alice said, without rising.

Her mother looked at her with a mute inquiry, but answered in an
instant, "Certainly."

When Mr. Furrey entered, he walked past Mrs. Belding to greet her
daughter, with profuse expressions of delight at her return, "of which