said Phil Goodrich.

"I'm afraid if we began on the scribes and Pharisees, we shouldn't stop
with Mr. Parr," Asa Wiring observed, with a touch of sadness.

"In spite of all they say he has done, I can't help feeling sorry for
him," said Mrs. Waring. "He must be so lonely in that huge palace of
his beside the Park, his wife dead, and Preston running wild around the
world, and Alison no comfort. The idea of a girl leaving her father as
she did and going off to New York to become a landscape architect!"

"But, mother," Evelyn pleaded, "I can't see why a woman shouldn't lead
her own life. She only has one, like a man. And generally she doesn't
get that."

Mrs. Waring rose.

"I don't know what we're coming to. I was taught that a woman's place
was with her husband and children; or, if she had none, with her family.
I tried to teach you so, my dear."

"Well," said Evelyn, "I'm here yet. I haven't Alison's excuse. Cheer up,
mother, the world's no worse than it was."

"I don't know about that," answered Mrs. Waring.

"Listen!" ejaculated Eleanor.

Mrs. Waring's face brightened. Sounds of mad revelry came down from the
floor above.

CHAPTER II. MR. LANGMAID'S MISSION

I

Looking back over an extraordinary career, it is interesting to attempt
to fix the time when a name becomes a talisman, and passes current for
power. This is peculiarly difficult in the case of Eldon Parr. Like many
notable men before him, nobody but Mr. Parr himself suspected his future
greatness, and he kept the secret. But if we are to search what is now
ancient history for a turning-point, perhaps we should find it in the
sudden acquisition by him of the property of Mr. Bentley.

The transaction was a simple one. Those were the days when gentlemen,
as matters of courtesy, put their names on other gentlemen's notes;
and modern financiers, while they might be sorry for Mr. Bentley, would
probably be unanimous in the opinion that he was foolish to write on the
back of Thomas Garrett's. Mr. Parr was then, as now, a business man, and
could scarcely be expected to introduce philanthropy into finance. Such
had been Mr. Bentley's unfortunate practice. And it had so happened,
a few years before, for the accommodation of some young men of his
acquaintance that he had invested rather generously in Grantham mining
stock at twenty-five cents a share, and had promptly forgotten the
transaction. To cut a long story short, in addition to Mr. Bentley'