will be easy enough, but you will find them greatly changed in circumstances. I believe the daughter almost earns a living for both. Clever girl, but the father rather the other way, I should think. Must have a screw loose somewhere."

Why do you think so?" "Look at that marriage in America. What sense can a man have had to allow himself to be disinherited for any woman? People may do it in romances, but I can

tell you that you don't catch them at it in real life-at least not here in England. You have your own way of managing things on the other side."

"So we have; and we find it a pretty good way in the long-run. There was nothing against Margrave's wife when he married her." "You knew her, then?"

"I did," answered Mink, briefly. "Well, who was she, and what became of her? And why on earth did he marry her?"

"He married her because he was in love. Do you never do that in England either?"

"Sometimes," said the lawyer, with a grin; "but I don't know that much good ever comes of it, unless one party or other has plenty of money then you can throw as much love in as you like-it can't do any harm. In this case, you see, a man lost a very pretty fortune by his sentimental tomfoolery; and if you can respect him after that, why, you must be very easily pleased. The odd thing is that he didn't even know the girl's father." “Well, I do.”

"You do? Come, that is something. Was he what we call a respectable man?"

"You would say he was, I reckon."

"Why does Mr Dexter File take so much interest in Margrave?"

asked the lawyer, with a keen look

at his visitor.

"Who told you that he does so?"

"I inferred that from your inquiring about him so particularly."

"You lawyers are all the same -fancy you see through a millstone the first time. One would think you were never wrong, instead of being so seldom right. I want to see Margrave on a little affair of my own. My real business here is with you."

"And pray, what is it? Can you tell me briefly, for unluckily I am just off to a meeting."

"Very briefly-in half-a-dozen words. Will you sell us the Tus

carora railroad?”

Now Morgan was used to transactions on a large scale, but this question staggered him. Sell an interest in a railroad worth ever so many millions, and without any preliminary negotiations! He began to look upon his visitor as a man who might, perhaps, by too much contact with a millionaire, have been driven mad.

"Are you authorised to treat?" he asked, suspiciously.

"I am, or I should not be here." "To any amount?"

"To any amount we think necessary."

"Then the best thing you can do is to come with me to a meeting of the shareholders, which takes place this very morning. Then you can see how the cat jumps."

Nothing could have suited Mink's arrangements more perfectly; and in a few minutes the pair were on their way to the City, and soon found themselves in a large room where a great crowd was assembled, preparing, in their phlegmatic and muddle-headed way, to see the cat jump. On the platform, the most striking figure which greeted Mink's eye was a bustling, shrewd

looking gentleman, of ruddy complexion and imposing appearance, who was to preside over the meeting, and who was introduced to Mr Mink as the chairman of the trustees the great Mr Bounce, whose persuasive powers were held to be unrivalled, in his own special line, in a country where everything is settled by eloquence.

"Glad to make your acquaintance, Mr Bounce," said Mink, after the American fashion.

"And yours too," replied Mr Bounce, after a few whispered words with Morgan, amid which Mink could distinguish the magic name of Dexter File. "Anybody," said the chairman, "who comes from Mr Dexter File, is welcome here. A wonderful man, sir- -a genius! Would you like to address the meeting?"

"I guess not," said Mink, hurriedly. "Chin-music is not in my line. I came to hear you talk.”

"Well, then, suppose we get to business," and without further ado Mr Bounce rapped on the table; and after some formalities had been gone through, the chairman had begun his oration. It was undeniably a very splendid affair, and Mink listened to it with genuine admiration. If people must have shareholders' meetings, clearly this was the proper way to have them. The shareholders here present had not received a dividend for years; but when one or two of their number began to put questions on the subject, they were hooted down by the others, and Mr Bounce assumed a lofty air of injured innocence, and denounced the intruders as spies who were in the pay of evil-disposed persons, anxious only to ruin their magificent property. At the end of the chairman's speech, the audience looked, and perhaps felt, as if they already had their dividends in their

pockets; and they voted a large increase of salary to their faithful and self-denying servants, the

trustees.

"That is how we manage things over here," said Morgan, as he tied up his papers.

"I guess it is a pretty good way too. Your Mr Bounce is a right smart man. He would have done well in our country, I reckon ; knows how to pull the wool over people's eyes, and that's everything. And now, what about the sale?"

"Why should we want to sell while we have people like these to deal with? Nothing could be gained by giving up a gold-mine like this. If your friend Mr File bought the railroad, what would become of us? Now, if he himself would come over, we might perhaps do something. He would understand that we could not be thrown overboard like a damaged cargo. The question is, are you prepared to treat with us on our terms?"

"Only for a sale outright."

"And you would take the management into your own hands?" "That's so. You've struck it this time, that's a fact."

"Then, Mr Mink, we will wind up our talk on that matter at once. It wouldn't do at any price. If Mr File will come to our terms, well and good. If not, here we stick. So that matter is settled. And now, can I do anything to serve you personally?"

Nothing, except to tell me how to get to this place," and he handed over a card on which he had written Margrave's address.

"You are going there at once?" "If I can. I may as well go there, and go back to New York too, for I reckon our business is about done."

The lawyer was eager to put a few questions in regard to the other

business, but he had already seen enough to convince him that Mink was not a hopeful subject for examination. And it might be better to leave him at the moment when the success of the meeting was still strong and fresh in his recollection.

"Jump into that cab," said he, as he reached the door, "and you will be at Margrave's in less than half an hour."

Thus Mink was already "through," as he said, with one half of his errand. The other half might be more difficult, and this was the half in which the agent was particularly anxious to succeed. For Margrave, he did not doubt, was a proud man; and what if he refused to receive the aid which was now to be offered? That might offend Dexter File, and Mink did not want to have him offended. Could he explain to Margrave why File intervened at all? A very short period of reflection convinced him that it would be impossible for him to take a single step in that direction. He could only trust to the chapter of accidents, and play his part with what skill he could muster.

"If I can straighten this matter out," he said to himself as he reached Margrave's door, "a good many wrongs will be partly set right. If I cannot, I must try to persuade File to come and do it himself. I almost think I could manage even that in time." And with this hope in reserve, he knocked boldly at the door.

When, however, he was in the presence of his old acquaintance, he did not find that it was a very easy matter even to approach the subject which was uppermost in his mind. He was received with great cordiality by both Margrave and his daughter; and the tidings which he could give of many of their old friends was gladly wel

comed. Mink was "everybody's friend;" no one was more popular in all the best houses and clubs of his native city. His good temper was proverbial; he remembered his friends a little longer than Americans generally are in the habit of doing. He had a great weakness for shooting and yachting; and in many an expedition of one kind or the other, Margrave had been his companion. Kate herself had more than once joined Mink's gay yachting-parties in a cruise on Long Island Sound, or down the Bay; and many a pleasant recollection was associated with these trips. It would be hard to devise a more agreeable method of passing a summer's day than to spend it with a well-chosen party on a crack American yacht. There is beautiful scenery to lure the voyagers, like Ulysses, to "sail beyond the sunset, and the baths of all the western stars." The sun is sure to shine brightly; and it must be a very unlucky day when the breezes are coy, and refuse to waft the wanderers on. Then, when evening comes, there is the welllit saloon-for the twilights are short-with a dinner spread upon the table such as might have inspired the great Frenchman to add a chapter to his famous work, similar to that on the wonderful wild turkey which he killed near "Harfort, dans le Connecticut," and which, when it was divided among the guests, caused them to cry out with rapture, "Oh, dear sir, what a glorious bit!”

There were thus not a few agreeable associations connected with their old friend in the minds of both Margrave and his daughter, and perhaps the regret which Mink expressed that they should ever have deserted the New World for the Old was not entirely unshared by them.

"I don't care whether you have

a fortune to spend, or whether you want to make one, America is the best place to live in," said Mink, who was already home-sick. "We help each other over there; it is part of the tradition, you see, of our old colonial life. In those days, a man was always ready to lend a hand in running up his neighbour's log-hut, or to go and reap his corn for him if he happened to be down with the shakes. We like to see everybody have a fair chance; and if a man tumbles down, we want to put him on his feet again. That's so," added Mink, slapping the crown of his hat emphatically.

"Well, we have nothing much to complain of, Kate and I. She works, and I work, and between us we keep the pot boiling."

"And you mean to say that Miss Kate works too?"

"That I do," said Kate, laughing; "and why not? You would not have me sit down and cry because we lost all our property? I think it would be a very good thing if every woman could earn her own living, or at least do something towards it. We should all be better off if we were less dependent upon men."

use to you. Why not let him have his own way?"

"Will he buy my pictures?" said Kate, with a merry smile.

"As fast as you can paint them. I guess I'll take back as many as you can get ready, at your own price. But I want to do something more than that, if you don't mind. I want to make you rich."

Margrave looked up surprised, and Kate burst out laughing. "What! and stop my painting for ever just as I am beginning to make a stir in the world? For, let me tell you, I have got a picture accepted at the Academy, and I would not exchange that honour for all Mr File's money."

"Then you are easily satisfied, my dear," said Mink. "When you get a little older, you will know that the power to buy just as many pictures as you want and everything else besides—is a great deal pleasanter than the power to handle a paint-brush. It's the only thing worth trying all you know to get, is money."

"And fame - is that worth nothing?"

rights. Excuse my saying so, Miss Kate, but I admire you more than ever for those sentiments. Stick to them. Never give in. That's the sort of spirit I like to see;" and honest Mink walked over to Kate, and shook hands with her as solemnly as if he had been the President beginning his first reception.

"But that's no reason," he continued, with considerable less confidence in his manner, "why friends should not help one another. Now there is Dexter File-he likes you both, and he wants to be of some

"I think I should be the happier for having it," replied Kate, with sparkling eyes.

"You would not,-you would find out, as they all do, that it's terribly overrated. But nobody thinks that way of money. I like your ideas of independence, mark you; but why not carry them out by a shorter cut than by painting pictures?"

"By accepting a stranger's money,' interposed Margrave, quietly.

"By taking a little of Dexter File's. That is a very different thing."

"I do not see it. Is not File a stranger, so far as regards a matter of this sort?"

"Well, according to my ideas, he is not. Would you let File have his own way if he could show you that he has a pretty fair claim to stand by you in your troubles?"

"You speak in parables," said Margrave, thoroughly mystified. "Come, Mink, be a little more explicit. You never had much difficulty in making one understand what you were driving at, but now you are dealing in riddles."

"I cannot help it," said Mink, feeling more and more convinced that he was not cut out for a dip lomatist. "You will know some day why I was so anxious to bring you over to my way of thinking about it. At present I can only tell you that, in accepting Dexter File's offer, you will not be doing anything you will afterwards be ashamed of. Is that enough?"

"Not nearly enough," said Margrave, taking his daughter's hand and smiling. "We are for the pen and the pencil against the wand of Midas. Avaunt, tempter! Leave us to our honest toil-and to our own ideas of independence."

Mink sat down looking a miserable man. "Then I have failed in everything I came here for," said he, sorrowfully, and there was no doubt that he took this second failure very much to heart. I may as well go back and tell File what a mess I have made of it. Hang me if I ever go out on a diplomatic mission again!"

"Not one of this kind, at any rate," said Margrave. "And now let me see you to your hotel; for if it should get about that you are Mr Dexter File's confidential friend, you would be bound and gagged,

and we should have to ransom you. Millionaires are not over plentiful about here just now."

"You have quite decided," said Mink to Kate, with some slight hope that the female nature would be less insensible to the power of gold than the man's.

"I always do as my father tells me," replied Kate, with mock humility.

"Then good-bye I reckon there's not many of your sort in London to-day, big city as it is. But mind what I tell you—you have not heard the last of Dexter File yet." Kate shook her head, and as soon as the door was closed she resumed her work. But it was destined that this was to be a broken day, for Margrave and his visitor had scarcely turned the corner of the street before another diplomatist drove up in hot haste, and in a few minutes burst into the room. This time the intruder was Sally Peters; and if Kate had been an artist of the other sex, the interruption would have been gladly forgiven, and even welcomed-for Sally was far prettier than anything to be seen on the walls of picture-galleries; and a new bonnet of a provokingly coquettish pattern, arrived that very morning from Paris, gave her a jaunty air which detracted nothing from the charm of her mischievous eyes and her graceful figure.

"My dear, I have seen him,” she cried, breathlessly, as she ran up to Kate with both hands outstretched. The warm impulsiveness of her nature had not yet been toned down by an elaborate study of French or English models of "deportment."

"Seen him ? Seen whom?" asked Kate, with as much apparent surprise as though she had not guessed all about it at the very first moment.

"Kate, don't be absurd. I de