his surprise at finding
his mother in Boston. He was so frank that she had not quite the
courage to confess in turn why she had come, but trumped up an excuse.

"Well, mother," he said promptly, "I have made an engagement with Mr.
Lapham."

"Have you, Tom?" she asked faintly.

"Yes. For the present I am going to have charge of his foreign
correspondence, and if I see my way to the advantage I expect to find
in it, I am going out to manage that side of his business in South
America and Mexico. He's behaved very handsomely about it. He says
that if it appears for our common interest, he shall pay me a salary as
well as a commission. I've talked with Uncle Jim, and he thinks it's a
good opening."

"Your Uncle Jim does?" queried Mrs. Corey in amaze.

"Yes; I consulted him the whole way through, and I've acted on his
advice."

This seemed an incomprehensible treachery on her brother's part.

"Yes; I thought you would like to have me. And besides, I couldn't
possibly have gone to any one so well fitted to advise me."

His mother said nothing. In fact, the mineral paint business, however
painful its interest, was, for the moment, superseded by a more
poignant anxiety. She began to feel her way cautiously toward this.

"Have you been talking about your business with Mr. Lapham all night?"

"Well, pretty much," said her son, with a guiltless laugh. "I went to
see him yesterday afternoon, after I had gone over the whole ground
with Uncle Jim, and Mr. Lapham asked me to go down with him and finish
up."

"Down?" repeated Mrs. Corey. "Yes, to Nantasket. He has a cottage
down there."

"At Nantasket?" Mrs. Corey knitted her brows a little. "What in the
world can a cottage at Nantasket be like?"

"Oh, very much like a 'cottage' anywhere. It has the usual allowance
of red roof and veranda. There are the regulation rocks by the sea;
and the big hotels on the beach about a mile off, flaring away with
electric lights and roman-candles at night. We didn't have them at
Nahant."

"No," said his mother. "Is Mrs. Lapham well? And her daughter?"

"Yes, I think so," said the young man. "The young ladies walked me
down to the rocks in the usual way after dinner, and then I came back
and talked paint with Mr. Lapham till midnight. We didn't settle
anything till this morning coming up on the boat."

"What sort of people do they seem to be at home?"

"What sort? Well, I don't know that I noticed." Mrs. Corey per