er in her
fifty-first year very comfortably off with two attractive daughters. She
had inherited everything he possessed, including two handsome
establishments, the one in Kensington and the other at Brineweald,
Kent,--and in his will there had not been even a small special provision
for either of his children. Economically, therefore, Cleopatra and
Leonetta Delarayne were bound hand and foot to their mother. But
although Mrs. Delarayne was by no means averse to power, she wielded it
so delicately in her relations with her offspring, that after their
father's death neither of her daughters ever learnt to doubt that what
was "Edith's" was theirs also. In regard to one question alone did Mrs.
Delarayne ever lay her hands significantly upon her gold bags--and that
was marriage. She never concealed from them that she would be liberal to
the point of recklessness if they married, but that she would draw in
her purse-strings very tightly, indeed, if they remained spinsters. In
fact it was understood that when she died each of her daughters, if wed,
would inherit half her wealth, but if they remained old maids, the bulk
of it would most certainly go to some promising though impecunious young
man in her circle.

She professed to loathe the sight, so common alas! in England, of the
affluent spinster, "growing pointlessly rotund on rich food at one of
the smug hotels or boarding-houses for parasitic nonentities, which are
distributed so plentifully all over the land," while thousands of
promising young men had to wait too long before they were able to take
their bride to the altar. It was her view that this feature of social
life in England was truly the white man's burden, and she vowed that no
money of hers would ever help to produce so nauseating a spectacle.
Behind Mrs. Delarayne's laudable views on this subject, however, there
were doubtless other and less patriotic considerations, which may or
may not be revealed in the course of this story.

A few minutes later the maid entered the room and announced, "Sir Joseph
Bullion."

"Show him in," cried her mistress, throwing her legs smartly off the
Chesterfield, adjusting her dress with a few swift touches, and then
reclining limply amid the cushions in a manner suggesting extreme
feebleness and fatigue.

The maid reappeared and ushered in a very much over-dressed old
gentleman.

He stood for some seconds on the threshold, smiling engagingly into the
room. It was difficult