rs again.

"Has any one been?" he asked as usual.

"Only Mr. Joseph."

"What might Mr. Joseph want?"

"Nothing at all."

"Then," said his grandfather, "Mr. Joseph might just as well have kept
away."

* * * * *

Let us anticipate a little. James spent the next day hovering about in
the hope that an opportunity would offer of getting the key in his
possession for a few moments. There was no opportunity. The bunch of
keys lay on the table under the old man's eyes all day, and when he
left the table he carried them with him. But the day afterward he got
his chance. One of the old customers called to talk over past bargains
and former prizes. Mr. Emblem came out of the back shop with his
visitor, and continued talking with him as far as the door. As he
passed the table--James's table--he rested the hand which carried the
keys on it, and left them there. James pounced upon them and slipped
them into his pocket noiselessly. Mr. Emblem returned to his own chair
and thought nothing of the keys for an hour and a half by the clock,
and during this period James was out on business. When Mr. Emblem
remembered his keys, he felt for them in their usual place and missed
them, and then began searching about and cried out to James that he
had lost his bunch of keys.

"Why, sir," said James, bringing them to him, after a little search,
and with a very red face, "here they are; you must have left them on
my table."

And in this way the job was done.

CHAPTER III.

IRIS THE HERALD.

By a somewhat remarkable coincidence it was on this very evening that
Iris first made the acquaintance of her pupil, Mr. Arnold Arbuthnot.
These coincidences, I believe, happen oftener in real life than they
do even on the stage, where people are always turning up at the very
nick of time and the critical moment.

I need little persuasion to make me believe that the first meeting of
Arnold Arbuthnot and Iris, on the very evening when her cousin was
opening matters with the Foxy one, was nothing short of Providential.
You shall see, presently, what things might have happened if they had
not met. The meeting was, in fact, the second of the three really
important events in the life of a girl. The first, which is seldom
remembered with the gratitude which it deserves, is her birth; the
second, the first meeting with her future lover; the third, her
wedding-day; the other events of a woman's life are interesti