as
he had intended to direct it.

"Mercy, yes, Mrs. Newt! Ma sez to me, 'Pa, what a boy Corlear is! how he
does spend money!' And I sez to ma, 'Ma, he do.' Tut, tut! The bills. I
have to pay for that bay--! I s'pose, now, your Abel don't lay up no
money--ha! ha!"

Mr. Van Boozenberg laughed again, and Mrs. Newt joined, but in a low and
rather distressed way, as if it were necessary to laugh, although nothing
funny had been said.

"It's positively dreadful the way he spends money," replied she. "I don't
know where it will end."

"Oh ho! it's the way with all young men, marm. I always sez to ma she
needn't fret her gizzard. Young men will sow their wild oats. Oh, 'tain't
nothin'. Mr. Newt knows that werry well. Every man do."

He watched Mrs. Newt's expression as he spoke. She answered,

"I don't know about that; but Mr. Newt shakes his head dismally nowadays
about something or other, and he's really grown old."

In uttering these words Mrs. Newt had sealed the fate of a large offering
for discount made that very day by Boniface Newt, Son, & Co.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

ANOTHER TURN IN THE WALTZ.

The music streamed through the rooms in the soft, yearning, lingering,
passionate, persuasive measures of a waltz. Arthur Merlin had been very
intently watching Hope Wayne, because he saw Abel Newt approaching with
Mrs. Van Kraut, and he wished to catch the first look of Hope upon seeing
him.

Mrs. Bleecker Van Kraut, when she waltzed, was simply a circular
advertisement of the Van Kraut property. Her slow rising and falling
motion displayed the family jewels to the utmost advantage. The same
insolent smoothness and finish prevailed in the whole performance. It
was almost as perfect as the Paris toys which you wind up, and which spin
smoothly round upon the table. Abel Newt, conscious master of the dance
and chief of brilliant youth, waltzed with an air of delicate deference
toward his partner, and, gay defiance toward the rest of the world.

The performance was so novel and so well executed that the ball instantly
became a spectacle of which Abel and Mrs. Van Kraut were the central
figures. The crowd pressed around them, and Abel gently pushed them back
in his fluctuating circles. Short ladies in the back-ground stood upon
chairs for a moment to get a better view; while Mrs. Dagon and Mrs. Orry,
whom no dexterous waltzer would ever clasp in the dizzy whirl, spattered
their neighborhood with epithets of contempt