served old Sturdevant, his conduct would be charitably criticised. If he
lives a year he will be in a frame of mind to leave the bulk of his
fortune to Ned. THEY have not quarrelled, you understand; on the
contrary, Mr. Lynde was anxious to settle an allowance of five thousand
a year on Ned, but Ned would not accept it. "I want uncle David's love,"
says Ned, "and I have it; the devil take his money."

Here you have all the points. I could not state them more succinctly and
do justice to each of the parties interested. The most unfortunate
party, I take it, is David Lynde. I am not sure, after all, that young
Lynde is so much to be pitied. Perhaps that club-house would not have
worked well for him if it had worked differently. At any rate he now has
his own way to make, and I commend him to your kindness, if I have not
exhausted it.

Your affectionate nephew, J. FLEMMING.

Five or six days after this letter reached Mr. Bowlsby, Mr. Edward Lynde
presented himself in the directors' room of the Nautilus Bank. The young
man's bearing confirmed the favorable impression which Mr. Bowlsby had
derived from his nephew's letter, and though there was really no vacancy
in the bank at the moment, Mr. Bowlsby lent himself to the illusion that
he required a private secretary. A few weeks later a vacancy occurred
unexpectedly, that of paying-teller--a position in which Lynde acquitted
himself with so much quickness and accuracy, that when Mr. Trefethen,
the assistant cashier, died in the December following, Lynde was
promoted to his desk.

The unruffled existence into which Edward Lynde had drifted was almost
the reverse of the career he had mapped out for himself, and it was a