ow selfish, idle fancies of your own?"

"No!" she answered, quite pale. "I would not do that! I will try to
help."

"You will take up the work the men of your name refuse, you will
provide a substitute for them?"

Her earnestness sprang to meet his strength of will, she leaned nearer
in her enthusiasm of self-abnegation, scarcely understood.

"I will find a substitute or accept yours. I, indeed I will try not to
fail."

It was characteristic that he offered neither praise nor caress.

"You have relieved my mind," said Ethan Ffrench, and turned his face
once more to the fire.

III

It was October when the consultation was held in the library of the
old Ffrench house on the Hudson; December was very near on the sunny
morning that Emily drove out to the factory and sought Bailey in his
office.

"I wanted to talk with you," she explained, as that gentleman rose to
receive her. "We have known each other for a long time, Mr. Bailey;
ever since I came from the Sacred Heart to live with Uncle Ethan. That
is a _very_ long time."

"It's a matter of five or six years," agreed the charmed Bailey,
contemplating her with affectionate pride in her prettiness and grace.
"You used to drive out here with your pony and spend many an hour
looking on and asking questions. You'll excuse me, Miss Emily, but
there was many a man passed the whisper that you'd have made a fine
master of the works."

She shook her head, folding her small gloved hands upon the edge of
the desk at the opposite sides of which they were seated.

"At least I would have tried. I am quite sure I would have tried. But
I am only a girl. I came to ask you something regarding that," she
lifted her candid eyes to his, her soft color rising. "Do you
know--have you ever met any men who cared and understood about such
factories as this? Men who could take charge of a business, the
manufacturing and racing and selling, like my uncles? I have a reason
for asking."

"Sure thing," said Bailey, unexpectedly prompt. "I've met one man who
knows how to handle this factory better than I do, and I've been at it
twelve years. And there he is--" he turned in his revolving chair and
rolled up the shade covering the glass-set door into the next room,
"my manager, Lestrange."

The scene thus suddenly opened to the startled Emily was sufficiently
matter-of-fact, yet not lacking in a certain sober animation of its
own. Around a drafting table central in the bare, sys