nplace and old-fashioned.

Mrs. Parker Bowman sat up with a pink glow in her cheeks and a light in
her eyes. She began to plan how she might keep this acquisition and
exploit her among her friends. It was her delight to bring out new
features in her entertainments.

"We shall simply keep you playing until you drop from weariness," she
announced ecstatically, when the last wailing, sobbing, soothing chord had
died away; and the other ladies murmured, "How delightful!" and whispered
their approval.

The girl smiled and rippled into a Chopin Valse, under cover of which
those who cared to could talk in low tones. Afterwards the musician dashed
into the brilliant movement of a Beethoven Sonata.

It was just as she was beginning Rubinstein's exquisite tone portrait,
Kamennoi-Ostrow, that the gentlemen came in.

Tryon Dunham had had his much desired talk with the famous judge, but it
had not been about law.

They had been drawn together by mutual consent, each discovering that the
other was watching the young stranger as she left the dining-room.

"She is charming," said the old man, smiling into the face of the younger.
"Is she an intimate friend?"

"I--I hope so," stammered Dunham. "That is, I should like to have her
consider me so."

"Ah!" said the old man, looking deep into the other's eyes with a kindly
smile, as if he were recalling pleasant experiences of his own. "You are a
fortunate fellow. I hope you may succeed in making her think so. Do you
know, she interests me more than most young women, and in some way I
cannot disconnect her with an occurrence which happened in my office this
afternoon."

The young man showed a deep interest in the matter, and the Judge told the
story again, this time more in detail.

They drew a little apart from the rest of the men. The host, who had been
warned by his wife to give young Dunham an opportunity to talk with the
Judge, saw that her plans were succeeding admirably.

When the music began in the other room the Judge paused a moment to
listen, and then went on with his story.

"There is a freight elevator just opposite that left door of my office,
and somehow I cannot but think it had something to do with the girl's
disappearance, although the door was closed and the elevator was down on
the cellar floor all the time, as nearly as I can find out."

The young man asked eager questions, feeling in his heart that the story
might in some way explain the mystery of the