cards with the dashing boldness
of a gambler while in a run of luck. I cautioned him, but to no good
purpose. One of his latest movements had been to put fifty or sixty
thousand dollars in a cotton factory?"

"Poh! What folly."

"A most egregious blunder. But he fancies himself an exceedingly
shrewd man."

"He has been remarkably fortunate in his operations."

"So he has. But he is more indebted, I think, to good luck than to a
sound judgment. He has gone up to dizzy height so rapidly, that his
weak head is already beginning to swim."

"What has become of that pretty little ward of his?" asked Martin,
somewhat abruptly.

"Why didn't you put that question to him?" replied Grind. "You would
have been more likely to get a satisfactory answer."

"I may do so after I have the ten thousand dollars in my pocket. That
was rather a shameful business, though; wasn't it? I never had a very
tender conscience, but I must own to having suffered a few twinges
for my part in the transaction. He received over a hundred thousand
dollars for the land?"

"Yes; and that clear of some heavy fees that you and I claimed for
services rendered."

"Humph! I'm not quite paid yet. But, touching the child, Mr. Grind:
don't you know any thing about her?"

"Nothing, personally."

"What was it Jasper paid for the tract of land?"

"One thousand dollars."

"Paid it into his own hands as the child's guardian."

"Yes; that was the simple transaction."

"Has the public never made a guess at the real truth of this matter?"

"Never, so far as my knowledge goes. There have been some vague
whisperings--but no one has seemed to comprehend the matter."

"The purchase was made in your name, was it not?"

"Yes."

"That is, you bought from Jasper as the child's guardian; and
afterward sold it back to him."

"Yes."

"Why didn't you hold on to it when it was fairly in your hands? I only
wish I had been in your place?"

The lawyer shrugged his shoulders, but did not commit himself by
acknowledging that he had, more than once, regretted his omission
to claim the property while legally in his hands, and defy Jasper to
wrest it from him.

Leaving these two men, whose relation to Jasper is sufficiently
apparent to the reader's mind, we will return to the merchant, whom we
left half-stupefied at the bold demand of an associate in wrong-doing.
A long time passed ere his activity of mind returned. While he sat,
brooding--dreamily--over what ha