tly, on that. Besides, some rich man would be sure to fall in love
with her.

"But she ought to have a great deal of money," the poetess eagerly
explained, very proud of her leader's losses. "Her father was a rich
man, quite a rich man, and he had quarrelled with her brother, and she
ought to have all the money, only for that second marriage." Indeed,
Miss Blanchet added the expression of her own profound conviction that
there must have been some queer work--some concealment or
something--about Mr. Grey's property, seeing that so little of it came
to Minola.

"I'll get Mr. Money to look into all that," Mrs. Money said decisively.
"He understands all about these things, and nothing could be hidden
from him."

Miss Blanchet modestly intimated that she had confided her suspicions
to her brother, and begged him to try and find out something.

"Oh, he never could understand anything about it!" Lucy said. "Poets
never know about these things. It's just in papa's line. He'll find
out. They can't baffle him. I know they have been cheating Nola--I know
they have! I know there's a will hidden away somewhere, making her the
rightful heir or whatever it is."

"About this gentleman--this lover. Is he a nice person?" Mrs. Money
began.

"Mr. Augustus Sheppard?" Mary asked, mentioning his name for the first
time in the conversation.

"Augustus Sheppard! Is that his name?" Lucy demanded eagerly.

"Why then, papa knows him! Indeed he does. I do declare papa knows
everything!"

"Why do you think, dear, that he knows this gentleman?"

"Because I heard him asking Nola about Mr. Augustus Sheppard the other
day, mamma, in our drawing-room."

"He couldn't have known this, I think," Miss Blanchet said.

"Oh, no, I suppose not; but he knows him, and he'll tell us all about
him. Why wouldn't Nola have him, Miss Blanchet?"

"He is rather a formal sort of person, and heavy, and not the least in
the world poetic or romantic; and Minola does not like him at all. She
doesn't think his feelings are very deep; but there I am sure she is
wrong," the poetess added emphatically. "She has never had occasion to
make a study of human feelings as others have."

"You think he has deep feelings?" Mrs. Money asked, turning the full
light of her melancholy eyes upon Mary, and with her whole soul already
in the question.

"Oh, yes; I know he has. I know that he will persevere, and will try to
make Minola marry him still. He is a man I should be