were saved."

They both laughed heartily, but when the waltz was over they returned to
their individual gloom. Towards supper-time, in the middle of a square
dance, Sam suddenly noticing Hannah's solitude, brought her a tall
bronzed gentlemanly young man in a frock coat, mumbled an introduction
and rushed back to the arms of the exacting Leah.

"Excuse me, I am not dancing to-night," Hannah said coldly in reply to
the stranger's demand for her programme.

"Well, I'm not half sorry," he said, with a frank smile. "I had to ask
you, you know. But I should feel quite out of place bumping such a lot
of swells."

There was something unusual about the words and the manner which
impressed Hannah agreeably, in spite of herself. Her face relaxed a
little as she said:

"Why, haven't you been to one of these affairs before?"

"Oh yes, six or seven years ago, but the place seems quite altered.
They've rebuilt it, haven't they? Very few of us sported dress-coats
here in the days before I went to the Cape. I only came back the other
day and somebody gave me a ticket and so I've looked in for auld lang
syne."

An unsympathetic hearer would have detected a note of condescension in
the last sentence. Hannah detected it, for the announcement that the
young man had returned from the Cape froze all her nascent sympathy. She
was turned to ice again. Hannah knew him well--the young man from the
Cape. He was a higher and more disagreeable development of the young man
in the dress-coat. He had put South African money in his purse--whether
honestly or not, no one inquired--the fact remained he had put it in his
purse. Sometimes the law confiscated it, pretending he had purchased
diamonds illegally, or what not, but then the young man did _not_ return
from the Cape. But, to do him justice, the secret of his success was
less dishonesty than the opportunities for initiative energy in
unexploited districts. Besides, not having to keep up appearances, he
descended to menial occupations and toiled so long and terribly that he
would probably have made just as much money at home, if he had had the
courage. Be this as it may, there the money was, and, armed with it, the
young man set sail literally for England, home and beauty, resuming his
cast-off gentility with several extra layers of superciliousness. Pretty
Jewesses, pranked in their prettiest clothes, hastened, metaphorically
speaking, to the port to welcome the wanderer; for they knew it