ecidedly well, thanks
chiefly to the large purchases of the new owner of the estate. This
tankard, for instance, which I have bought--hem--as a slight memento of
your family, cost me ten shillings an ounce."

"Indeed!" answered Leonard coldly; "I always understood that it was
worth fifty."

Then came another pause, during which all who were present, except Mr.
Beach and himself, rose one by one and quitted the room. Jane was the
last to go, and Leonard noticed, as she passed him, that there were
tears in her eyes.

"Jane," said her father in a meaning voice when her hand was already on
the door, "you will be careful to be dressed in time for dinner, will
you not, love? You remember that young Mr. Cohen is coming, and I should
like somebody to be down to receive him."

Jane's only answer to this remark was to pass through the door and slam
it behind her. Clearly the prospect of the advent of this guest was not
agreeable to her.

"Well, Leonard," went on Mr. Beach when they were alone, in a tone that
was meant to be sympathetic but which jarred horribly on his listener's
ears, "this is a sad business, very sad. But why are you not sitting
down?"

"Because no one asked me to," said Leonard as he took a chair.

"Hem!" continued Mr. Beach; "by the way I believe that Mr. Cohen is a
friend of yours, is he not?"

"An acquaintance, not a friend," said Leonard.

"Indeed, I thought that you were at the same college."

"Yes, but I do not like him."

"Prejudice, my dear boy, prejudice. A minor sin indeed, but one against
which you must struggle. But there, there, it is natural that you should
not feel warmly about the man who will one day own Outram. Ah! as I
said, this is all very sad, but it must be a great consolation to you to
remember that when everything is settled there will be enough, so I am
told, to pay your unhappy father's debts. And now, is there anything
that I can do for you or your brother?"

Leonard reflected that whatever may have been his father's misdeeds, and
they were many and black, it should scarcely have lain in the mouth of
the Rev. James Beach, who owed nearly everything he had in the world to
his kindness, to allude to them. But he could not defend his father's
memory, it was beyond defence, and just now he must fight for his own
hand.

"Yes, Mr. Beach," he said earnestly, "you can help me very much. You
know the cruel position in which my brother and I are placed through no
fault of our