"Ned Keene, I guess. Didn't he leave any message?"

"Y-yes.

He said to tell you- Oh, I don't believe it matters!"

"Go on, Joan; what did he say?" "Uncle Tom, did anybody named Reynolds ever live in this house?"

"What the deuce has that to do with it? Did he ask for John Reynolds?"

"No-no, it has nothing to do with it. I just want to know. Did a ReynoldsJudge Reynolds-ever live here?"

"Yes. about six years ago."

He built the house. Sold it

"Oh!"

"Then give me that message-straight, if you can. What did Ned say?"

"He said the man said-to tell you that Con and Jerry-Uncle Tom, who are Con and Jerry?”

Some political friends of mine. What about 'em?"

"He said to tell you they hadslumped."

"What?" roared the boss.

"And that the deal to-morrow waswas a dead one," she finished, faintly. "The devil he did! When was this? What time?"

"O-oh, Uncle Tom!"
"What time? Quick!"

"About-half past eleven, I think. Oh!" It was a catch of the breath rather than an exclamation. "Is it really-important?"

Important! It's about the last straw, that's what it is! But I'll stop it," savagely, through set teeth, "or break some

body! I've just time to catch the twelve-three."

"Where are you going?"

"Back to town-and on to Hades, if necessary, to fix this thing! They think I'm down and out, do they? Well, I'll show 'em! I won't be back to-night. 'By." There was a sound of hurrying footsteps, the door slammed - and silence followed.

After a moment Bobby softly opened the door and peered out. The lights had been extinguished. He stepped out into the hall, and found only darkness and silence. Although the way now lay open, he still lingered, not wishing to go without seeing Joan Herrick again, but uncertain as to where she was or how to reach her. For a long time he stood in absolute silence, waiting, hoping she would come back for a final word with him. Then a shuddering sob from the moonlit drawing-room solved his doubt, and he went quietly to where she lay prone, face down, across a divan.

"Bless you!" he said, brokenly. “Oh, bless you!" The sobs ceased, but she gave no other acknowledgment of his presence. He knelt beside her, longing yet not daring to touch her hand. "I can't thank you ever, but won't you let me try?" "Go away," she whispered. "I know," he said. You must hate You have saved-oh, it isn't just that you have saved me, now, at the moment, but you have saved the Chief. You have greatly served the people, and saved to them their faith in him. You have saved the whole thing. It sounds trite and cheap to say that I shall always thank you—and bless you. But I shall.” "Oh, will you go!" she gasped.

me.

"Yes, at once. But first I want you to know that I realize-fully-what this has cost you."

"You don't! You can't!" The restraint in which she held herself broke, and she sprang up and went, sobbing, to the window, whither he presently followed her. "You can't know! He was all I had. My own people died years ago. He has always, always taken care of me, and now you have taken away-my faith in him. I have betrayed him, and he was all I had!"

"I know," said Bobby, his voice deep and tender and broken by emotion. "I

wish I have wished all along-that I could spare you that. But I couldn't."

"Oh, isn't anything real?" she cried. "Isn't anybody sincere, and simple, and honest?"

"And

"Yes, you are," said Bobby. big, and brave, and strong, and fine. And there are men in the world who are as honest and as big. Some day you'll meet one of them, and then you'll be more than ever glad that you did the right thing to-night, no matter how it hurt you, or him, or anybody."

"You don't understand," she said. "I've lost my faith in him, and he was all I had. There's no faith left in me."

"You believed me," ventured Bobby, softly. "I told you the truth, and you believed me."

Do you

"It was the truth?" searchingly. "This has not been for nothing?" "It was the absolute truth. believe that? . . . Do you?" "Yes," she whispered at last, and turned away her face.

"Thank God!" After a moment's hesitation he took her hand in his warm,

firm grasp and kissed it. "Will you let me see you again some day?" "No." She shook her head. "You must never come here again."

"You can't forgive me?"

"No, no! You were right. But because you were right, for your own sake-" She broke off with a negative gesture.

"There is nothing of that sort between you and me that can't be bridged," he asserted.

"I am his niece-in effect, his daughter," she cried, "and you are-what you are. What can ever bridge that?"

"The truth," said Bobby, simply. "Time, and the truth. May I trysome day?"

It was enough for him that she did not forbid him. Once more he kissed her hand before he released it, and very quietly left the room and the house. When he had descended the steps he took off his hat and stood for a moment looking up at the motionless figure in the window. Then he turned, his head still bared, and walked quickly out to the bright, empty street,

Τ

HERE is a friend of mine with an office near the Battery. I should like to describe him, but I suppose that this would be scarcely fair. And yet the temptation is hard to resist; and I think that I will succumb to it sufficiently to say that he is six feet three, with a large, distinguished face such as America in its best days used to make, and very long, swift legs that love to walk. I must not mention his profession or you might guess exactly whom I mean; but, whatever it may be, it is nothing to him compared with the armful of books without which he is never seen abroad-seldom less than four or five volumes, and volumes often of great size and weight, such as it would weary a less robust arm to carry all the way from the Battery to Morningside Park! For -here at last is the point-my friend makes it his habit sometimes of a spring or summer afternoon to walk up-town from his office to his home, as I understand other New York professional men are in the habit of doing. Personally, while I love walking in the country, and could be happy forever just walking with a stick and a knapsack from the morning star to the moon, with the sky and a bird or two and green leaves for companions, I don't, as a rule, care to walk much in town. I prefer the trolley-cars. But several times of late my friend has persuaded me to make an exception to my rule. I need exercise, he says. Most New-Yorkers do.

So I have joined him in his evening walk up-town. He is a wonderful companion, with an eye for character which nothing escapes, and with an eye for the evening sky. As well, he and I are one in loving New York, and that beauty of it which so many seem to miss, and which, as with all beauty, it is hardly worth while explaining; for any one who needs explanations is just as well off without them. Then, too, my friend is

attractively learned in the romantic lore of New York's early history, and, all the way up-town, has some forgotten landmark or sacred site of old achievement to point out to me.

We take varied routes, diverging here and there into side streets, and quartiers" bodily imported from EuropeTurkish, French, Russian, Italian; but, as a rule, we walk straight up Broadway -paying a few minutes' call, before we start, at the Aquarium; for we are both still childish enough to love to watch those frilled and furbelowed fishes swimming forever in a rainbowed twilight of water-weeds, or the ghostly things that sleep and crawl at the bottom of the sea. And how strange it has been to me to think that in the old circular building where all those strange things swim and gleam, and where the silence of the shimmering tanks is only broken by the bark of the seal, Jenny Lind once sang with her bird-like legendary voice! How strange, as one stands outside, with the impatient water lapping all about one, as lonely in the sound of it as though it were breaking on some unvisited promontory-that lonely sound that the ocean can never lose, however near it may come to the warm habitations of men-how strange to think that here, where the great ships go down the bay, and the mighty buildings tower, and the broken outcast sits, with his sad heart and his battered face, on the inhospitable benches, not so many years ago was the distinguished haunt of fashion and frivolity, and crinolines once rustled where yonder tramp now sleeps.

Surely if there was ever a romantic city in the world it is New York; for in what other modern city will you find so many contrasts-contrasts of past and present, contrasts of race and character and condition; and in what other city can you hear the voice of the future calling with so unconquerable a cry?