Mrs. Russell and Laura were the first to leave after Paton had been lifted from the table and carried back to the sofa in the parlor. He exacted from Laura a promise that she would call upon him the next day with the news of her visit to the law-office.

"I can never thank you enough for all your kindness," said she.

"Come with good news of yourself tomorrow, that is all I ask of you," said Paton.

In the bedroom in which she slept that night with Mrs. Russell a large oil-painting of an extremely beautiful lady hung opposite the foot of the bed. The face was that of a dainty, high-bred woman of little more than girlish age, and of the deepest brunette type. Though the face was of this type, it yet symbolized delicacy and purity in as high a degree as any blond visage which painters have used to typify the same standards. head was small, but proudly poised. forehead was high and rounded. The eyes were softly brown, with jet lashes under blackest brows, which contrasted strongly with the fair, peach-tinged complexion. The slender nose was distinguished by sensitive nostrils, and the mouth suggest ed two rose leaves rolled together.

The

The

"Oh, what a beautiful face!" Laura called out, as she stopped before the picture. She stood and continued to gaze at it, conscious that an uncommon force riveted her before it.

"It's a picture of Archie's aunt Editha," Mrs. Russell explained. "It's a copy he had made of a painting in his uncle's house in Dutchess County. He raves over it. He has sent it to many loan exhibitions, and it is quite famous." An inexpressible delight dominated Laura as she heard this.

"It is Editha!" she murmured inaudibly, to herself. "I might have known it. I instantly felt a fascination such as no picture ever exerted upon me." Aloud she said, "What a beautiful woman she must have been!"

She forced herself to keep awake until she thought her companion was asleep, and then she crept out of bed and went noiselessly to a desk in the front room. Eagerly she searched for pen and paper, and then waited, courting a written message from Editha. There presently came

an indescribable sense of a caress that was warm without warmth, and that was

not tangible and yet made itself felt. However, no impulse to use the pen came to her."

"Have you nothing to write to me?" she asked, with her mind. She fancied that her beloved Etherian whispered to her to sleep, but she was disinclined to return to bed without another celestial message in writing. As she sat wishing for a communication, there came to her consciousness an impression that to-morrow held new and serious trouble in store for her, and that Editha would be with her. She returned to the subject again by mental questioning of her unseen friend, but with no other result than that the warning remained with her, and presently Mrs. Russell came stumbling into the room.

"My dear child," she said, "you will get your death! What are you doing clad like that in this room? I missed you.

Do you walk in your sleep?"

"I was trying to think-that is, I could not sleep," Laura replied, allowing herself to be led back to the bedroom. Soon afterwards, just as she felt herself passing from wakefulness, the extraordinary appearance of the painting opposite the bed caused her to concentrate her gaze upon it, and to rub her eyes and stare at it again. Though the room was dark and nothing else was visible, the picture shone upon the wall. It grew brighter as she looked, for her Etherian friend had raised herself to a place before the painting. By a great effort Editha intensified the otherwise invisible ray which was her soul-herself really-and Laura saw this against the frame and canvas. To Laura's imagination, at least, the portrait was vaguely, faintly visible-so faintly that no part of it was as distinguishable as the golden frame, and even that was lighted rather by a luminous mist than by any light to which human eyes are accustomed.

'Are you awake?" Laura asked. "Yes, dear," Mrs. Russell answered. "Look at that picture. It is lighted up," said Laura.

Mrs. Russell opened her eyes and slightly raised herself to see better. On the instant the luminous effect disappeared.

"I can see nothing," Mrs. Russell answered.

"It is not so now," Laura said. A few minutes later the light appeared again, and now Laura believed that it be

down upon the soft seat. Then he questioned her in hushed and awesome whispers, appearing startled at the fulness of her voice each time that she replied to him.

66

More than anything else," she ventured, "I want to ask you if you have any money from my father to send to my mother, and find out whether they will allow me to go and see her. They told me it would be weeks before she would be calm enough to receive me, but I do so want to see her."

"I will telegraph, and you shall know to-day," the lawyer replied, reserving in his thoughts the necessary condition that Laura should first prove herself to be his client's daughter.

Mr. Brown was a shrewd man beneath all his shyness, and yet, after the greatest pains in his cross-examination of her, she convinced him of her genuineness. When he felt no doubt remaining, he led her back to the story of her misadventures, and listening now as if for the first time, was greatly agitated and distressed. assumed that she would command him to have Lamont arrested, and her refusal to do so put him extremely out of sorts. He was at first disinclined to regard her refusal as seriously intended.

He

"It is a crime to condone a crime," said he, in a sepulchral whisper. "Do you know that we go so far as to call it compounding,' miss? Compounding a crime, that's what we call it."

"He is my cousin," Laura declared, "and that pleads for him. I could never begin my existence in that household by making a public scandal."

"Purely a woman's reason," Mr. Brown whispered. "My partner will call it fantastic. However, in considering it, I will look at it from your point of view."

When Laura refused to have him announce to her uncle's attorneys the fact of her having been found, the blow to Mr. Brown's sense of order proved fearful. It was when he discovered that she could give no better reason than that her appearance might interfere with Archibald Paton's success in a love adventure that the mouselike man was overcome. He tried to whisper, but a mere gasp followed. He tried again, and no sound came. He rolled his eyes at her as if he was expiring, and then sank back in his chair in a limp heap. Before she knew whether to scream or rub his wrists or

throw water in his face, he rose up, and feebly struck a bell that was on his desk.

"It's a case for Mr. Crossley," he whispered. "He has a wife and a daughter. He will know how to meet this-extraor dinary-whim."

Mr. Crossley was a very little, very nervous, very restless man, of the height and slender shape of a boy, and dressed in a boy's short coat and little collarless waistcoat. The energy he spent in putting his glasses on his nose, in taking them off and whirling them around one forefinger, and in replacing them on his nose and taking them off, and whirling them again, would, if used to generate heat, have warmed an ordinary hall bedroom in midwinter. His possession of a wife “and a daughter" rendered him so at ease with their sex that he used extremely violent language the moment the case was whispered in his ear by his partner.

"Can't have it, madam," he shouted; "not for one instant."

"I haven't told you all my reasons-" Laura ventured, but got no further.

"There can be no reasons. It's infernal nonsense-childish, sentimental, poppycockish nonsense! Worse, it's distinctly and undeniably criminal, and we'll have no part in it."

"I must tell you, please," Laura said; "I am so sorry you think as you do, but surely it's my property to take or to leave. And I only ask to keep hidden a few days until Mr. Paton receives an answer to a certain letter he has written to a lady."

"Tut, tut; but go on. It's idle, but I will hear you," Mr. Crossley growled.

"He saved my life, sir, and hurt himself terribly. And he is a man, sir, and would know how to manage the property better than I."

· Oh-h-h-h!" Mr. Crossley roared. "Only a moment ago it was to be for a few days, and now you propose to give him the property!"

"Truly, I would rather," Laura acknowledged. “I never knew the Lamonts or heard of them. I have been poor always, and would be better content with what little I could earn for myself. Then, you know, sir, he expected to be the heir; he counted on it, and made plans in that expectation."

"Miss Balm," said Mr. Crossley, whirling his glasses under her nose, and then whipping them on to his own and off again—“Miss Ba' n, this is very amusing.

I will not say creditable, because that would be flattery, and false besides; an infernal falsehood. It is very amusing, I say, but it is not business. We are your lawyers. What are lawyers for, eh, madam? They are for business-the business of setting things straight, and advising the ignorant, and controlling erratic, sentimental, and disordered views of

things. As your lawyers, madam, we shall take you at once to Messrs. Green and Shipton, and declare you as the heir to Colonel Lamont's estate."

"We shall," Mr. Brown whispered.

"I seem peremptory," Mr. Crossley continued, "and harsh, but I am acting as the law directs, and in your interest."

Laura, quite overcome by a sense of

extraordinary misbehavior, ventured no further remonstrance.

At the offices of Messrs. Green and Shipton she paid a more satisfactory visit. The partners were elderly men, easy, paternal, and sympathetic. They humored her, and while seeming to allow her to have "her own head," as the horsemen say, really led her to modify her plans so that possession of the estate was to be taken in her name on the follow ing day. A man was to be sent at once to relieve Mr. Borrowes by assuming charge of the property, but the newspaper advertisements concerning Laura were to continue to be published for two or three days afterward. Mr. Shipton proposed to call for her at her lodgings that afternoon to take her to his home, that she might make his wife's acquaintance. He said that Madam Shipton, as he called her, would prove of great service in supervising the preparation of a.. outfit of clothing such as he was sure Laura would require in order to take her place at the head of her new home and in the neighborhood circles. Both these lawyers succeeded in making her feel that they were her friends first and her agents afterwards. They promised to bring her that afternoon whatever news of her mother was obtained by Brown and Crossley. They also arranged that her indebtedness to Mrs. Turley should be at once discharged, and her own and her mother's belongings should be removed to the Clock House. Pocketmoney, as they called it-though Laura thought she could never use as much as either firm gave her-was pressed upon her at both the law-offices, and Messrs. Green and Shipton urged her to draw upon them freely to meet any needs she incurred while in New York. Accompanied by a clerk whom Mr. Shipton sent with her, she rode back to Archibald's flat in the state of mind of a person under enchantment. So poor that morning, so friendless only twenty-four hours before, so put upon and persecuted during nearly a week, so hopeless and forlorn when dire calamity had befallen her mother only a fortnight ago; but now, with ready money plentiful, deferred to by men of influence, escorted about the city, treated by every one as a person of wealth and consequence, and, more than all, again in communication with her mother-small wonder that her body

VOL. XCVII.-No. 582-118

should feel light as air and her feet should seem to tread the clouds!

"At any rate, my visit to these lawyers will not be known until Mr. Paton receives his answer from that lady." This thought rose in her mind, and gave her satisfaction.

Eagerly she went from Archibald's flat to that in which he was staying. She tried to define the feeling she had for him; the cause of his appearing in her mind like an associate in well-established friendship. Sometimes she thought this the natural outcome of the important aid he had rendered and she had received. Truly, if politics makes strange companions, peril works quicker with all companionships. Sharing the excitement of the rescue from the warehouse—with his pain to match her alarm-surely this might account for and excuse her eagerness to see him. Then she recalled his ease of manner and kindly light-hearted way in sober junctures. True, his jocularity somewhat belittled even her own estimate of his heroism, but - how eloquent this was of modesty! And he was so handsome (here she was descending to girlish sincerity). And such a gentleAnd a great writer too! And in love. How romantic!

man.

Alas! She had meant to be romantic also, until Messrs. Green and Shipton bluntly assured her that Archibald's heart could not break if a girl showed herself so mercenary as to consider the claims of love only conditional upon their securing her a fortune. Messrs. Green and Shipton also declared that Archibald would, in all likelihood, decline to assume control of the Clock House estate unless proof of the death of the alternative heir made him secure in that relation. Dear, dear! what a silly, practical world she had fallen into! But it was not a bad one, she felt without formulating the acknowledgment, where friends and money and kindness thrust themselves at her from every side.

Should she tell him that afternoon who she was? She might as well. True, she had obliged two firms of lawyers to pledge themselves to bury the secret for a few days; but what of that, since she must so soon abandon her romantic plan? It would be inconsistent; it would "seem queer," was the way she put it; but Archibald had spoken so loyally and gallantly of her as his cousin, and the soon