the check, held still another inclosure--a
note from Mr. Balfour. This he had slipped into his pocket, and, in the
absorption of his attention produced by the principal communication,
forgotten. At the close of his conversation with Jim, he remembered it,
and took it out and read it. It conveyed the intelligence that the
lawyer found it impossible to leave the city according to his promise,
for an autumn vacation in the woods. Still, he would find some means to
send up Harry if Mr. Benedict should insist upon it. The boy was well,
and progressing satisfactorily in his studies. He was happy, and found a
new reason for happiness in his intimacy with Mrs. Dillingham, with whom
he was spending a good deal of his leisure time. If Mr. Benedict would
consent to a change of plans, it was his wish to keep the lad through
the winter, and then, with all his family, to go up to Number Nine in
the spring, be present at Jim's wedding, and assist in the inauguration
of the new hotel.

Mr. Benedict was more easily reconciled to this change of plan than he
would have believed possible an hour previously. The letter, whose
contents had so mystified and disturbed Jim, had changed the whole
aspect of his life. He replied to this letter during the day, and wrote
another to Mr. Balfour, consenting to his wishes, and acquiescing in his
plans. For the first time in many years, he could see through all his
trials, into the calm daylight. Harry was safe and happy in a new
association with a woman who, more than any other, held his life in her
hands. He was getting a new basis for life in friendship and love.
Shored up by affection and sympathy, and with a modest competence in his
hands for all present and immediately prospective needs, his dependent
nature could once more stand erect.

Henceforward he dropped his idle dreaming and became interested in his
work, and doubly efficient in its execution. Jim once more had in
possession the old friend whose cheerfulness and good-nature had
originally won his affection; and the late autumn and winter which lay
before them seemed full of hopeful and happy enterprise.

Miss Butterworth, hearing occasionally through Jim of the progress of
affairs at Number Nine, began to think it about time to make known her
secret among her friends. Already they had begun to suspect that the
little tailoress had a secret, out of which would grow a change in her
life. She had made some astonishing purchases at the vill