thetic story like yours. Some years ago my little half-cousin whom
you saw lost his mother and was put in my charge by his father, with
a certain sum to my credit, to be expended for myself and the child.
I lived with an uncle, with whom, for some family reasons, the child's
father was not on good terms, and this money and the charge of the child
were therefore intrusted entirely to me; perhaps, also, because Bobby
and I were fond of each other and I was a friend of his mother. The
father was a shipmaster, always away on long voyages, and has been home
but once in the three years I have had charge of his son. I have not
heard from him since. He is a good-hearted man, but of a restless,
roving disposition, with no domestic tastes. Why he should suddenly
cease to provide for my little cousin--if he has done so--or if his
omission means only some temporary disaster to himself or his fortunes,
I do not know. My anxiety was more for the poor boy's sake than for
myself, for as long as I live I can provide for him." She said this
without the least display of emotion, and with the same mature air of
also repressing any emotion on the part of Randolph. But for her size
and girlish figure, but for the dripping tangles of her hair and her
soft eyes, he would have believed he was talking to a hard, middle-aged
matron.

"Then you--he--has no friends here?" asked Randolph.

"No. We are all from Callao, where Bobby was born. My uncle was a
merchant there, who came here lately to establish an agency. We lived
with him in Sutter Street--where you remember I was so hateful to you,"
she interpolated, with a mischievous smile--"until his enterprise failed
and he was obliged to return; but I stayed here with Bobby, that he
might be educated in his father's own tongue. It was unfortunate,
perhaps," she said, with a little knitting of her pretty brows, "that
the remittances ceased and uncle left about the same time; but, like
you, I was lucky, and I managed to get a place in the Emporium."

"The Emporium!" repeated Randolph in surprise. It was a popular "magasin
of fashion" in Montgomery Street. To connect this refined girl with its
garish display and vulgar attendants seemed impossible.

"The Emporium," reiterated Miss Avondale simply. "You see, we used
to dress a good deal in Callao and had the Paris fashions, and that
experience was of great service to me. I am now at the head of what they
call the 'mantle department,' if you please, an