whose lack of sociability had become almost proverbial.

"If it were not, my dear," she said one day to Virginia, when they were
having tea together in her own more modest apartment, "that I firmly
believe your uncle incapable of any affection for any one, we should all
have to believe that he had lost his heart to you."

Virginia, who had heard other remarks of the same nature, looked
puzzled.

"I cannot see," she exclaimed, "why every one speaks of my uncle as a
heartless person. I do not think that I ever met any one more kind, and
he looks it, too. I do not think that I ever saw any one with such a
benevolent face."

Mrs. Trevor Harrison laughed softly as she rocked herself in her chair.

"Dear child," she said, "New York has known your uncle for twenty-five
years, and suffered for him. These men who make great fortunes must make
them at the expense of other people, and there are very many who have
gone down to make Phineas Duge what he is."

"I cannot understand it," Virginia said.

"Your uncle," Mrs. Trevor Harrison continued, "has a will of iron, is
absolutely self-centered; sentiment has never swayed him in the least.
He has climbed up on the bodies of weaker men. But there, in America we
blame no one for that. It is the strong man who lives, and the others
must die. Only I cannot quite understand this new development. I have
never known your uncle to do a purposeless thing."

"You say," Virginia remarked slowly, "that he has no heart. Why did he
send for me, then? Since I have been here, he has paid off the mortgage
which was making my father an old man, he has sent my brother to
college, and has promised, so long as I am with him, to allow them so
much money that they have no more anxiety at all. If you only knew what
a change this has made in all our lives, you would understand that I do
not like to hear you say that my uncle has no heart."

Mrs. Trevor Harrison stopped rocking her chair, and looked at the girl
thoughtfully.

"Well," she said, "what you tell me sounds very strange. Still, I don't
see what motive he could have had for doing all this."

"Why should you suspect a motive?" Virginia demanded.

"Because he is Phineas Duge," Mrs. Harrison said drily. "But there, my
dear child, I mustn't say a word against your uncle. He has been nice
enough to me because I have promised to look after you. Does he want me
to marry you, I wonder? I don't think that it would be very difficult."

Virgini