ther Wall Street or the heavens crashed
Miss Maggie's orders were to be obeyed. She selected Ripon House from
Jawkins's list, and her father hired it, although he had a leaning
toward Windsor Castle, which the Republic wished to lease for a term of
years, or to sell upon easy terms.

Every one in Paris two years before had said that the penniless young
Englishman, Lord Ripon, wished to make a rich marriage, and that the
capricious Miss Windsor, after having broken, cracked or temporarily
discouraged a sufficient number of hearts, was at last ready to accept a
lord and perhaps a master. But in the middle of the season the British
Legation was recalled, and Geoffrey, after a few words of farewell,
disappeared, and from the day of his leaving Paris Miss Windsor had
heard nothing of him. She did not know herself whether she cared for
him; he was good-natured and amusing, and she liked to have him talk to
her and be her slave, but when he was gone, the world was not a blank to
her.

Still, it piqued her that Lord Brompton had effaced himself so
completely from her life. "He might, at least, have written to let me
know that he lived," she kept thinking. Of course she knew the name of
his old estate, and she knew that he owned the porter's lodge and the
few acres around it, for he had told her once that he still owned a
little box in England, and that when the worst came to the worst he
intended to crawl into it and shut the lid. When Jawkins sent his list
of estates for rent, and she saw the name of Ripon House on it, her
heart gave a little jump. Mr. Windsor had, of course, known of the
affair between Lord Geoffrey and his daughter, and had neither approved
nor disapproved of it. He knew that, if she made up her mind to marry,
he would be consulted only as a matter of form. When she had informed
him on their arrival that Lord Brompton was living in the neighborhood,
and that she meant to invite him to dinner very soon, the shrewd old man
smiled grimly, and acquiesced in her plan.

As her father sat musing before the fire, the door opened suddenly, and
Maggie bounded into the room.

"Has Jawkins arrived, papa?" she asked.

"Yes; we have just been going over his list of guests together. By the
way, Maggie, is your young man to be our guest?"

"Oh, papa!" Maggie exclaimed, perching herself upon one of his knees and
stroking his chin with one of her dimpled hands, "how can you be so
ill-bred as to speak of any one as my y