crippled brother, his mother's dying
legacy to him. You know all this--you know, too, that if you will only
grant a little longer respite he can settle the claim, or the greater
part of it. How then can you be so cruel as to drive us out of doors!
You who need nothing of this world's goods!"

The man of business stirred a little, crossed his well-clad legs in
still greater comfort, and audibly repressed a yawn. Then as if
unwillingly forced to say something he did it as ungraciously as
possible.

"Again I say I grieve to proceed to harsh measures, but"--then as she
was about to interpose he broke out irritably, "God bless my soul, Mrs.
Blaine, how can you expect anything else! I am obliged to be accurate in
my matters, otherwise there would be no end to imposition from shiftless
men who are always going to pay but----never do."

"This, then, is your ultimatum, sir? You will turn me and my children
out wanderers from the old home where I was born--where I had hoped to
die? Can you do this? Even you, whom the world calls rich and prosperous
and----charitable!" As she spoke she bent upon him in fine scorn her
brilliant eyes dark and piercing.

"Painful things occur every day, my dear madam, in this transitory
life. And once in a while the tables turn. I think I remember a time
when I pleaded with perhaps not so much eloquence, but quite as much
earnestness, for a boon at the hands of pretty Mildred Deering.
I didn't get it, and I have survived, you see. We are apt to magnify
our misfortunes;" and a mocking smile told wherein lay the animus that
was her undoing.

Then she drew her graceful figure to its full height, and with the
contempt of an outraged wife and mother, her words came in tones of
concentrated vehemence:

"So! Robert Garrett, this is your vaunted Christianity! You, the
immaculate pillar of the church--the friend of the outcast--the chief
among philanthropists! Grant _your_ boon? Was there was ever a
moment in her sheltered life when Mildred Deering would have consorted
with the hypocrite you are? Never! Better a thousand times poverty with
nobility and truth in the man she loves. Better an age of privation with
Herbert Blaine than a single instant in the presence of such as you. Do
your worst! And may God mete out to you and yours the mercy you have
shown us!"

Clasping the hand of her little girl who had clung to her mother's
skirts, gazing with wide-open, awestruck eyes at the great man, she was
g