me lately. And, grandmother, I
am not troubling about the event as it regards Dora or Fred or Basil
Stanhope, but as it regards Ethel."

"What have you to do with it?"

"That is just what I want to have clearly understood. Aunt Ruth told me
that father and you would be disappointed if I did not marry Fred."

"Well?"

"I am sorry to disappoint you, but I never shall marry Fred Mostyn.
Never!"

"I rather think you will have to settle that question with your father,
Ethel."

"No. I have settled it with myself. The man has given to Dora all the
love that he has to give. I will have a man's whole heart, and not
fragments and finger-ends of it."

"To be sure, that is right. But I can't say much, Ethel, when I only
know one side of the case, can I? I must wait and hear what Fred has
to say. But I like your spirit and your way of bringing what is wrong
straight up to question. You are a bit Yorkshire yet, whatever you think
gets quick to your tongue, and then out it comes. Good girl, your heart
is on your lips."

They talked the afternoon away on this subject, but Madam's last words
were not only advisory, they were in a great measure sympathetic. "Be
straight with yourself, Ethel," she said, "then Fred Mostyn can do as he
likes; you will be all right."

She accepted the counsel with a kiss, and then drove to the Holland
House for her father. He was not waiting, as Ruth had supposed he would
be, but then she was five minutes too soon. She sent up her card, and
then let her eyes fall upon a wretched beggar man who was trying to play
a violin, but was unable by reason of hunger and cold. He looked as if
he was dying, and she was moved with a great pity, and longed for her
father to come and give some help. While she was anxiously watching, a
young man was also struck with the suffering on the violinist's face.
He spoke a few words to him, and taking the violin, drew from it such
strains of melody, that in a few moments a crowd had gathered within the
hotel and before it. First there was silence, then a shout of delight;
and when it ceased the player's voice thrilled every heart to passionate
patriotism, as he sang with magnificent power and feeling--

There is not a spot on this wide-peopled earth
So dear to our heart as the Land of our Birth, etc.

A tumult of hearty applause followed, and then he cried, "Gentlemen,
this old man fought for the land of our birth. He is dying of hunger,"
and into the old man'