was of
good size, covered with a carpet of which no pattern and very little
color were left. The furniture was old-fashioned and solid; a
dining-table covered with faded green baize was in the middle, and a
writing-table with several drawers was placed near the fireplace, beside
which stood a high-backed leather arm-chair, old, worn, dirty. A
wretched fire was dying out in the grate, almost choked by the red ashes
of the very cheapest coal.

An odor of dust long undisturbed pervaded the atmosphere, and the dull
damp weather without added to the extreme gloom. Indeed the door of this
apartment might well have borne Dante's inscription over the entrance to
a warmer place.

Mr. Liddell went with feeble rapidity across to where a large newspaper
lay upon the floor, and resting one hand on the writing-table, stooped
painfully to raise it.

"There! read--read the price-list to me. I am blind and helpless, for
that jade has hid my glasses. I know she has. I cannot find them
anywhere, and I _must_ know how Turkish bonds are going. Read to me.
I'll hear what you have to say after." He thrust the paper into her
hand, and sat down in the high-backed chair.

Poor Katherine felt almost dazed. She took a seat at the other side of
the table, and began to look for the mysterious list. The geography of
the mighty _Times_ was unknown to her, and even in her mother's humbler
penny paper the City article was a portion she never glanced at. While
she turned the wide pages, painfully bewildered, the old man "glowered"
at her.

"I don't think you know what you are looking for," he cried,
impatiently.

"I do not indeed! If you will show it to me----"

He snatched it from her, and pointed out the part he wished to hear.
"Read from the beginning," he said.

Katherine obeyed, her courage returning as she found herself thus
strangely installed within the fortress she feared to attack. She
stumbled occasionally, and was sharply set upon her feet, in the matter
of figures, by her eager hearer. At last she came to Turkish six per
cents.

"Eighty-seven to eighty-eight and a quarter."

"Ha!" muttered the old man, "that's an advance! good! nothing to be done
there yet. Now read the railway stocks."

Katherine obeyed. When she came to "Florida and Teche debentures,
sixty-two and a half to sixty-five and three-fourths," she was startled
by a sort of shrill shout. "Ay! _that's_ a rise! Some rigging design
there! I must write--I must. Where,