admiration.

"How far did that letter come?" she asked, with eager questioning eyes.

"Lettee me see him," said Ah Fe.

Cissy handed him the missive; he examined closely some half-a-dozen
Chinese characters that were scrawled along the length of the outer
fold, and which she had innocently supposed were a part of the markings
of the rice paper on which the note was written.

"Heap Chinaman velly much walkee--longee way! S'pose you look." He
pointed through the open front door to the prospect beyond. It was a
familiar one to Cissy,--the long Canada, the crest on crest of serried
pines, and beyond the dim snow-line. Ah Fe's brown finger seemed to
linger there.

"In the snow," she whispered, her cheek whitening like that dim line,
but her eyes sparkling like the sunshine over it.

"Allee same, John," said Ah Fe plaintively.

"Ah Fe," whispered Cissy, "take ME with you to Hop Li."

"No good," said Ah Fe stolidly. "Hop Li, he givee this"--he indicated
the envelope in his sleeve--"to next Chinaman. HE no go. S'pose you go
with me, Hop Li--you no makee nothing--allee same, makee foolee!"

"I know; but you just take me there. DO!"

The young girl was irresistible. Ah Fe's face relaxed. "Allee litee!" he
said, with a resigned smile.

"You wait here a moment," said Cissy, brightening. She flew up the
staircase. In a few minutes she was back again. She had exchanged her
smart rose-sprigged chintz for a pathetic little blue-checked frock of
her school-days; the fateful hat had given way to a brown straw "flat,"
bent like a frame around her charming face. All the girlishness, and
indeed a certain honest boyishness of her nature, seemed to have come
out in her glowing, freckled cheek, brilliant, audacious eyes, and the
quick stride which brought her to Ah Fe's side.

"Now let's go," she said, "out the back way and down the side streets."
She paused, cast a glance through the drawing-room at the contemplative
figure of the sheriff's deputy on the veranda, and then passed out of
the house forever.

*****

The excitement over the failure of Montagu Trixit's bank did not burn
itself out until midnight. By that time, however, it was pretty well
known that the amount of the defalcations had been exaggerated; that
it had been preceded by the suspension of the "Excelsior Bank" of San
Francisco, of which Trixit was also a managing director, occasioned by
the discovery of the withdrawal of securities for use in the branch bank