little familiar with fine furniture, pictures, and
bric-a-brac, he was a man of quick perceptions and good judgment, and it
did not take him long to discover that the internal furnishings of the
Buskirk house were far inferior to those of the addition to Mrs. Cliff's
old home.

The room in which he sat was large and pretentious, but when it had been
furnished there had been no lady of good family accustomed to the
furnishings of wealth and culture, and with an artistic taste gained in
travel at home and abroad, to superintend the selection of these
pictures, this carpet, and the coverings of this furniture!

He laughed within himself as he sat, his fur cape on his knees and his
silk hat in his hand, and he was so elated and pleased with the
knowledge of the superiority of Mrs. Cliff's home over this house of the
proud city people who had so long looked down upon Plainton, that he
entirely forgot his intention of recalling, as he sat in the fine parlor
of the Buskirks, the olden times when he used to get up early in the
morning and swab the deck.

"These people ought to come down and see Mrs. Cliff's house," thought
Burke, "and I'll make them do it if I can!"

When Mrs. Buskirk, a lady who had always found it necessary to place
strong guards around her social position, made her appearance, she
received her visitor with an attentive civility. She had been impressed
by his appearance when she had seen him grandly careering in his
barouche or his sleigh, and she was still more impressed as she saw him
in her parlor with additional furs. She had heard he had been a sailor,
but now as she talked to him, the belief grew upon her that he might yet
make a very good sailor. He was courteous, entirely at his ease, and
perhaps a little too bland, and Mrs. Buskirk thought that although her
husband might like to sit and smoke with this well-dressed, sun-burned
man, he was not a person very desirable for the society of herself and
daughters.

But she was willing to sit and talk to Mr. Burke, for she wanted to ask
him some questions about Mrs. Cliff. She had heard about that lady's new
house, or rather the improvement to her old one, and she had driven past
it, and she did not altogether understand the state of affairs.

She had known that Mrs. Cliff was a widow of a storekeeper of the town,
and that she had come into possession of a portion of a treasure which
had been discovered somewhere in the West Indies or South America, bu