boy to be as wasteful as he pleased. "Yes," she said, with the
quick decision which was so characteristic of her, "yes, he can
have her."

"No, he can't," said Elizabeth's uncle.

"What?" she said, in frank surprise.

"Blair will have too much money. Inherited wealth is the biggest
handicap a man can have."

"Too much money?" she chuckled; "your bearings are getting hot,
ain't they? Come, come! I'm not so sure you need thank God. How
can a man have too much money? That's nonsense!" She banged her
hand down on the call-bell on her desk. "Evans! Bring me the
drawings for those channels."

"I tell you I won't have it," Robert Ferguson repeated.

"I mean the blue-prints!" Mrs. Maitland commanded loudly; "you
have no sense, Evans!" Ferguson got up; she had a way of not
hearing when she was spoken to that made a man hot along his
backbone. Robert Ferguson was hot, but he meant to have the last
word; he paused at the door and looked back.

"I shall not allow it."

"Good-day, Mr. Ferguson," said his employer, deep in the blue-
prints.