trick of hers might have
cost me my life."

"You are not going to sell Gypsy, papa," exclaimed the girl,
forgetting the doctor's injunctions in her dismay; "not your own
beautiful Gypsy?"

"I never allow people or animals to offend me twice, Nea. It is not
the first time Gypsy has played this trick on me. Let Stephenson see
to it at once. I will not keep her. Tell him to let Uxbridge see her,
he admired her last week; he likes spirit and will not mind a high
figure, and he knows her pedigree."

"Yes, sir," replied Wilson.

"By the bye," continued Mr. Huntingdon, feebly, "some one told me just
now about a youth who had done me a good turn in the matter. Did you
hear his name, Wilson?"

"Yes, papa," interrupted Nea, eagerly; "it was Mr. Trafford, one of
the junior clerks, and he is down-stairs in the library, waiting for
the doctor to dress his shoulder."

Nea would have said more, for her heart was full of gratitude to the
heroic young stranger; but her father held up his hand deprecatingly,
and she noticed that his face was very pale.

"That will do, my dear. You speak too fast, and my poor head is still
painful and confused;" and as Nea looked distressed at her
thoughtlessness, he continued, kindly, "Never mind, Doctor Ainslie
says I shall be all right soon--he is going to send me a nurse.
Trafford, you say; that must be Maurice Trafford, a mere junior. Let
me see, what did Dobson say about him?" and Mr. Huntingdon lay and
pondered with that hard set face of his, until he had mastered the
facts that had escaped his memory.

"Ah, yes, the youngest clerk but one in the office; a curate's son
from Birmingham, an orphan--no mother--and drawing a salary of seventy
pounds a year. Dobson told me about him; a nice, gentlemanly lad;
works well--he seems to have taken a fancy to him. He is an old fool,
is Dobson, and full of vagaries, but a thoroughly good man of
business. He said Trafford was a fellow to be trusted, and would make
a good clerk by and by. Humph, a rise will not hurt him. One can not
give a diamond ring to a boy like that. I will tell Dobson to-morrow
to raise Trafford's salary to a hundred a year."

"Papa!" burst from Nea's lips as she overheard this muttered soliloquy,
but, as she remembered the doctor's advice, she prudently remained
quiet; but if any one could have read her thoughts at that moment,
could have known the oppression of gratitude in the heart of the
agitated girl toward the stranger