one o'clock returned to dinner with quite a number of negatives of various objects of interest about the place. After dinner the young man retreated to his room to prepare for the battle that he felt sure would rage on the following Monday.

He did not know all the circumstances of the trouble that had invaded the family, but he felt sure that the confidential clerk intended some terrible shame or exposure that in some way concerned his cousin Alma. So it was he came to call himself her Lohengrin, come to fight her battles, not with a sword, but with the telegraph, the camera, and the micro-lantern.

The Sabbath passed quietly, and the Monday came. After breakfast the student retreated to his room and tried to study, but could not.

About ten o'clock he heard a carriage of some kind stop before the house. His room being at the rear, he could not see who had come, and thinking that it might be merely some stray visitor, and that at least it did not concern him, he turned to his books and made another attempt to read.

After some slight delay he heard the carriage drive away, and the old house became very still. Then he heard a door open down stairs, and a moment after one of the maids knocked at his door.

"Would Mr. Franklin kindly come down stairs? Mr. Denny wished to see him in the library."

He would come at once; and picking up a number of unmounted photographs from the table, he prepared to go down stairs. He hardly knew why he should take the pictures just then. There seemed no special reason why he should show them to Mr. Denny; still, an indefinite feeling urged him to take them with him.

The library was a small room, dark, with heavy book shelves against the walls, and crowded with tables, desk, and easy chairs. There was a student lamp on the centre table, and in a corner stood a large iron safe. Mr. Denny was seated at the table with his back to the door, and with his head supported by his hand and arm. He did not seem to notice the arrival of his visitor, and Elmer advanced to the table and laid the photographs upon it.

"I am glad you have come, Mr. Franklin. I wish to talk with you. I wish to tell you something. A great affliction has fallen upon us, and I wish you, as our guest, to be prepared for it. I think I can trust you, Elmer Franklin. I remember your mother, my boy. You have her features—and I will trust you for her sake. We are ruined."

"How, sir? How is that possible, with all your property?"

"Not one cent of my property—not a foot of ground, or a single brick, or piece of shafting in the mills—belongs to me."

"This is terrible, sir. How did it happen?"

"It is a short and sad story. I was my father's only child, and there were no other heirs. My father's last illness was very sudden, and he left no will. He told me when he died that he had left everything to me. We never found any will that would bear out this assertion. However, the ordinary process of law gave me the property, and I thought myself secure. Suddenly a will was found, in which all the property was left to a distant relative in New York, and I was merely mentioned with some trifling gift. I contested the will and lost the case. It was an undoubted will, and in my father's own handwriting, and dated more than a year before he died and when I was rusticating from college. I thought I must needs sow my wild oats, and day after to-morrow I pay for them all by total beggary. The devisee, by the will, acted very strangely about the property. He did not disturb me for a very long time. He probably feared to do so; and then he made a mortgage of one hundred thousand dollars on the property, took the money, and went abroad."

"And he left you here in possession?"

"Yes. The interest on the mortgage became due. There was no one to pay it, and they even had the effrontery to come to me. I refused again and again, and every time the interest was added to the mortgage till it rolled up to an enormous amount. Meanwhile the devisee died, penniless, in Europe, and on Wednesday Abrams, the lawyer who holds the mortgage, is to take possession of everything—and we—we are to go—I know not whither."

For a few moments there was a profound silence in the room. The elder man mourned his dreadful fate, and the son of science was ready to shout for joy. Restraining himself with an effort, he said, not without a tremor in his voice:

"And have you searched for any other will?"

"That is an idle question, my son. We have searched these years. Then, too, just as I need a staff for my declining years, it breaks under me."

"You refer to Mr. Belford, sir?"

"Yes. Since I injured my foot in the mill, I have trusted all my affairs to him, and now I sometimes think he is playing me false. Even now, when all this trouble has come upon me, he is absent, and I have no one to consult, nor do I find any to aid or comfort me."

"Perhaps I can aid you, sir."

"I do not know. I fear no one can avail us now."

"May I be very frank with you, sir?"

"Certainly. I am past all pride or fear. There can be nothing worse now."

"I think, sir, you have placed too much confidence in that man. He is not trustworthy."

"How do you know? Can you prove it?"

"Yes, sir. You remember the new chimney?"

"Yes; but he explained that, and collected all the money that had been paid on the supposed extra height of the chimney."

"That was very easy, sir, for he had it in his own pocket. I met some of the work people in the village, and casually asked them how high the chimney was to be, and every man gave the real height. Mr. Belford lied to you about it, and pocketed the difference between his measurements and mine. Of course, when detected he promptly restored the money, and thought himself lucky to have escaped so easily. More than that, he claimed that the chimney was capped with stone. It is not. It is brick to the top, and the upper courses were rubbed over with colored plaster."

"I can hardly believe it. Besides, how can you prove it?"

"That will, sir. Look at it carefully."

So saying, Elmer selected a photograph from those on the table and presented it to Mr. Denny.

The old gentleman looked at it carefully for a few moments, and then said with an air of conviction—

"It is a perfect fraud. I had no idea that the man was such a thief."

"Yes, sir. Look at that bare place where the plaster has fallen off. You can see the brick——"

"Oh, I can see. There is no need to explain the picture. Have you any more?"

"Yes, sir; quite a number. I'm glad I brought them with me."

Mr. Denny turned them over slowly, and commented briefly upon them.

"That's the house. Very well done, my boy. That's the mill. Excellent. I should know it at once. And—eh! what's that? The batting mill?"

"Yes, sir. That's the new building going up beyond the millpond."

"Great heavens! What an outrageous fraud! Mr. Belford told me it was nearly done. He has drawn almost all the money for it already, and according to this picture only one story is up. When was this picture taken?"

"On Saturday, sir. Alma was with me. She will tell you."

Mr. Denny rang a small bell that stood at his elbow, and a maid came to the door.

"Will you call Miss Denny, Anna?"

The maid retired, and in a moment or two Alma appeared. She seemed pale and dejected, and she sat down at once as if weary.

"What is it, father? Any new troubles?"

"Were you with your cousin when he took this photograph?"

She looked at it a moment, and then said wearily:

"Yes. It's the batting mill."

Just here the door opened, and Mr. Belford, hat and travelling bag in hand, as if just from the station, entered the room. The two men looked up in undisguised amazement, but Alma cast her eyes upon the floor, and her face seemed to put on a more