an say it's safe, from me."

Shelton made a face.

"Mother," said he, "always believes things are safe."

His uncle looked through him with his keen, half-suffering glance, and
up went the corners of his mouth.

"She's splendid," he said.

"Yes," said Shelton, "splendid."

The transaction, however, did not interest him; his uncle's judgment in
such matters had a breezy soundness he would never dream of questioning.

"Well, about your settlement"; and, touching a bell three times,
Mr. Paramor walked up and down the room. "Bring me the draft of Mr.
Richard's marriage settlement."

The stalwart commissionaire reappearing with a document--"Now then,
Dick," said Mr. Paramor. "She 's not bringing anything into settlement,
I understand; how 's that?"

"I did n't want it," replied Shelton, unaccountably ashamed.

Mr. Paramor's lips quivered; he drew the draft closer, took up a
blue pencil, and, squeezing Shelton's arm, began to read. The latter,
following his uncle's rapid exposition of the clauses, was relieved when
he paused suddenly.

"If you die and she marries again," said Mr. Paramor, "she forfeits her
life interest--see?"

"Oh!" said Shelton; "wait a minute, Uncle Ted."

Mr. Paramor waited, biting his pencil; a smile flickered on his mouth,
and was decorously subdued. It was Shelton's turn to walk about.

"If she marries again," he repeated to himself.

Mr. Paramor was a keen fisherman; he watched his nephew as he might have
watched a fish he had just landed.

"It's very usual," he remarked.

Shelton took another turn.

"She forfeits," thought he; "exactly."

When he was dead, he would have no other way of seeing that she
continued to belong to him. Exactly!

Mr. Paramor's haunting eyes were fastened on his nephew's face.

"Well, my dear," they seemed to say, "what 's the matter?"

Exactly! Why should she have his money if she married again? She would
forfeit it. There was comfort in the thought. Shelton came back and
carefully reread the clause, to put the thing on a purely business
basis, and disguise the real significance of what was passing in his
mind.

"If I die and she marries again," he repeated aloud, "she forfeits."

What wiser provision for a man passionately in love could possibly have
been devised? His uncle's eye travelled beyond him, humanely turning
from the last despairing wriggles of his fish.

"I don't want to tie her," said Shelton suddenly.

The corners of Mr. Paramo