What book have you got there?"
He glanced at the volume she held, and seeing what it was, laughed, and
took it away from her.

"How did you ever find _that_?" he asked, in a deprecating voice,
though, at that, genuinely modest as he was, he was not ill-pleased.
"I thought you would have found something better. I'm not posing as
the modest author, and all that sort of thing, but there are some
wonderful books in here that you shouldn't have missed."

"I--I didn't know you were--I mean----"

"You mean you didn't know that I was all that that critic chap says I
am? Well, I'm not. He's just gotten into the amiable habit of saying
kind things in his old age--so that he can get into Heaven when he
dies, in spite of all the damage he did in his youth. Come
along--unless you want to look about you some more."

"I'll be ready in a moment," said Nancy, slipping off the stool.
"I--there's something being wrapped for me that I want to get." With
that she went off to the back of the store and had the little volume
tied up, and paid for it with the last cent in her pocketbook. Then
she returned.

"All right now? Here is your money." He took a fat envelope out of
his pocket and gave it to her, and they left the shop.

As they walked across to Fifth Avenue, he explained to her rather
vaguely the proceeding by which he had raised the money for her; but
while she quite failed to understand it all she rested upon her faith
in his superior intelligence in business matters.

"When I want to get the ring back again, what do I do? and don't I have
to pay interest?"

"Oh, no, you don't have to pay interest, that's the wonderful part of
it. And when you want it back, you just tell me. I'll have to get it
for you, but you won't mind that, will you?"

"Oh, no--oh, you _have_ been so kind, Mr. Arnold, I mean, G-George.
Only you won't say anything to Uncle Thomas--of course you won't, but
I'm just mentioning that."

"I won't breathe a word to any living thing on land or sea. This is
our own private conspiracy, and no one shall have any part in it," he
assured her, gaily. "Only please promise me that, if you should need
any help again, you'll ask me. I--it disturbed me very much to find
you at old Zeigler's, though of course it was my good fortune."

There was an abundance of time before Nancy's train left, so they
strolled at an easy pace down Fifth Avenue, stopping to look in at the
shop windows whenever they saw anythin