dge Merriweather. For years she kept the old home
unencumbered, teaching French and English until Margaret was well in
her teens. The girl was sent to one of the good old boarding-schools on
the Hudson and came out well prepared to help her mother in the battle
to keep the wolf down and appearances up. Margaret was rich in
friendships; and pride alone stood between her and the advantages they
offered. Good-looking, bright, and cheerful, she knew no natural
privations. With a heart as light and joyous as a May morning, she
faced adversity as though it was a pleasure, and no one would have
suspected that even for a moment her courage wavered.

Now that Brewster had come into his splendid fortune he could conceive
no greater delight than to share it with them. To walk into the little
drawing-room and serenely lay large sums before them as their own
seemed such a natural proceeding that he refused to see an obstacle.
But he knew it was there; the proffer of such a gift to Mrs. Gray would
mean a wound to the pride inherited from haughty generations of men
sufficient unto themselves. There was a small but troublesome mortgage
on the house, a matter of two or three thousand dollars, and Brewster
tried to evolve a plan by which he could assume the burden without
giving deep and lasting offense. A hundred wild designs had come to
him, but they were quickly relegated to the growing heap of subterfuges
and pretexts condemned by his tenderness for the pride of these two
women who meant so much to him.

Leaving the bank, he hastened, by electric car, to Fortieth Street and
Broadway, and then walked eagerly off into the street of the numeral.
He had not yet come to the point where he felt like scorning the cars,
even though a roll of banknotes was tucked snugly away in a pocket that
seemed to swell with sudden affluence. Old Hendrick, faithful servitor
through two generations, was sweeping the autumn leaves from the
sidewalk when Montgomery came up to the house.

"Hello, Hendrick," was the young man's cheery greeting. "Nice lot of
leaves you have there."

"So?" ebbed from Hendrick, who did not even so much as look up from his
work. Hendrick was a human clam.

"Mrs. Gray in?"

A grunt that signified yes.

"You're as loquacious as ever, Hendrick."

A mere nod.

Brewster let himself in with his own latch key, threw his hat on a
chair and unceremoniously bolted into the library. Margaret was seated
near a window, a book in he