beg," ran lightly up the stairs.

Meantime Gordon strolled to the broad front door that stood open from morning to night, winter and summer, and paused there to light his cigar. All his characteristics were accented in the lustre of the vivid day, albeit for the most part they were of a null, negative tendency, for he had an inexpressive, impersonal manner and a sort of aloof, reserved dignity. His outward aspect seemed rather the affair of his up-to-date metropolitan tailor and barber than any exponent of his character and mind. He was not much beyond thirty years of age, and his straight, fine, dark hair was worn at the temples more by the fluctuations of stocks than the ravages of time. He was pale, of medium height, and slight of build; he listened with a grave, deliberate attention and an inscrutable gray eye, very steady, coolly observant, an appreciable asset in the brokerage business. He was all unaccustomed to the waste of time, and it was with no slight degree of impatience that he looked about him.

The magnolia grove filled the space to the half-seen gate in front of the house, but away on either side were long vistas. To the right the river was visible, and, being one of the great bends of the stream, it seemed to run directly to the west, the prospect only limited by the horizon line. On the other side, a glare, dazzlingly white in the sun, proclaimed the cotton-fields. Afar the gin-house showed, with its smoke-stack, like an obeliscal column, from which issued heavy coils of vapor, and occasionally came the raucous grating of a screw, telling that the baler was at work. Interspersed throughout the fields were the busy cotton-pickers, and now and again rose snatches of song as they heaped the great baskets in the turn-rows.

Within the purlieus of the inclosure about the mansion there was no stir of industry, no sign of life, save indeed an old hound lying on the veranda steps, looking up with great, liquid, sherry-tinted eyes at the stranger, and, though wheezing a wish to lick his hand, unable to muster the energy to rise.

After an interval of a few moments Gordon turned within. He felt that he must forthwith get at the papers and set this little matter in order. He paused baffled at the door of the parlor, where satin damask and rosewood furniture, lace curtains and drawn shades, held out no promise of repositories of business papers. On the opposite side of the hall was a sitting-room that bore evidence of constant use. Here was a desk of the old-fashioned kind, with a bookcase as a superstructure, and a writing-table stood in the centre of the floor, equipped with a number of drawers which were all locked, as a tentative touch soon told. He had not concluded its examination when a step and rustle behind him betokened a sudden entrance.

"Miss Geraldine Norris!" a voice broke upon the air,—a voice that he had not before heard, and he turned abruptly to greet the lady as she formally introduced herself.

A veritable Titania she seemed as she swayed in the doorway. She was a little thing, delicately built, slender yet not thin, with lustrous golden hair, large, well-opened, dark blue eyes, a complexion daintily white and roseate,—a fairy-like presence indeed, but with a prosaic, matter-of-fact manner and a dogmatic pose of laying down the law.

Gordon could never have imagined himself so disconcerted as when she advanced upon him with the caustic query, "Why did you not ask Mrs. Keene for her husband's keys? Surely that is simple enough!" She flung a bunch of keys on a steel ring down upon the table. "Heavens! to be roused from my well-earned slumbers at daybreak to solve this problem! 'Hurryf Hurry! Hurry!'" She mimicked Mrs. Keene's urgency, then broke out laughing.

"Now," she demanded, all unaffected by his mien of surprised and offended dignity, "do you think yourself equal to the task of fitting these keys,—or shall I lend you my strong right arm!"

It is to be doubted if Gordon had ever experienced such open ridicule as when she came