be wrecked; stockholders to be fleeced; Wall Street lambs to be shorn?
Surely a man married to please himself and not to make money. Ed.
assured the old man that cases had been known where a suspicion of
mercenary motives had hovered round a matrimonial alliance, but Druce
expressed the utmost contempt for such a state of things.

At first Ella had been rather afraid of her silent father-in-law, whose
very name made hundreds tremble and thousands curse, but she soon
discovered that the old man actually stood in awe of her, and that his
apparent brusqueness was the mere awkwardness he felt when in her
presence. He was anxious to please her, and worried himself wondering
whether there was anything she wanted.

One day he fumblingly dropped a cheque for a million dollars in her
lap, and, with some nervous confusion, asked her to run out, like a
good girl, and buy herself something; if that wasn't enough, she was to
call on him for more. The girl sprang from her chair and threw her arms
around his neck, much to the old man's embarrassment, who was not
accustomed to such a situation. She kissed him in spite of himself,
allowing the cheque to flutter to the floor, the most valuable bit of
paper floating around loose in America that day.

When he reached his office he surprised his son. He shook his fist in
the young fellow's face, and said sternly--

"If you ever say a cross word to that little girl, I'll do what I've
never done yet--I'll thrash you!"

The young man laughed.