nsure your rapid advance."

The young man's eyes sparkled; with a sudden impetuous movement he
jumped to his feet and grasped his uncle's hand. "I can never thank you
enough; you have made me your debtor for life. Now let any one ask me
who is my father, and I will say--"

"He was Edward Sylvester's brother. But come, come, this extreme
gratitude is unnecessary. You have always been a favorite with me,
Bertram, and now that I have no child, you seem doubly near; it is my
pleasure to do what I can for you. But--" and here he surveyed him with
a wistful look, "I wish you were entering into this new line from love
of the business rather than love of a woman. I fear for you my boy. It
is an awful thing to stake one's future upon a single chance and that
chance a woman's faith. If she should fail you after you had compassed
your fortune, should die--well you could bear that perhaps; but if she
turned false, and married some one else, or even married you and then--"

"What?" came in silvery accents from the door, and a woman richly clad,
her trailing velvets filling the air at once with an oppressive perfume,
entered the room and paused before them in an attitude meant to be arch,
but which from the massiveness of her figure and the scornful carriage
of her head, succeeded in being simply imperious.

Mr. Sylvester rose abruptly as if unpleasantly surprised. "Ona!" he
exclaimed, hastening, however, to cover his embarassment by a courteous
acknowledgement of her presence and a careless remark concerning the
shortness of the services that had allowed her to return from church so
early. "I did not hear you come in," he observed.

"No, I judge not," she returned with a side glance at Mandeville. "But
the services were not short, on the contrary I thought I should never
hear the last amen. Mr. Turner's voice is very agreeable," she went on,
in a rambling manner all her own, "it never interferes with your
thoughts; not that I am considered as having any," she interjected with
another glance at their silent guest, "a woman in society with a
reputation for taste in all matters connected with fashionable living,
has no thoughts of course; business men with only one idea in their
heads, that of making money, have more no doubt. Do you know, Edward,"
she went on with sudden inconsequence, which was another trait of this
amiable lady's conversation, "that I have quite come to a conclusion in
regard to the girl Philip Longtree is going