hemselves upon the very hearthstones, dealt death to fondest hopes.

Dorothy, who, for all the selfish shallowness of that relative, loved
her mother, tried to take her hand. At a shadow of sympathy she would
have laid before Mrs. Hanway-Harley the last secret her bosom hid. There
was no sympathy, nothing of mother's love; Mrs. Hanway-Harley, in the
narrowness of her egotism, could consider no feelings not her own.

"Don't; don't touch me!" she cried. "Don't add hypocrisy to your
ingratitude!" Then, in tones that seemed to pillory Dorothy as reprobate
and lost, she cried: "You have disgraced me--disgraced your father, your
uncle, and me!"

"Another word," cried Dorothy, moving with a resentful swoop towards the
bell, "and I'll call Uncle Pat to judge between us! Yes; he is in his
study. Uncle Pat shall hear you!"

Mrs. Hanway-Harley, glass knees and all, got between Dorothy and the
bell. Dorothy's uncle and Dorothy's father should know; but not then.
She had hoped that with reason she might rescue her daughter from a step
so fatal as marriage with a hopeless beggar who could not live without
the charity of his patron. These things and much more spake Mrs.
Hanway-Harley; but she might as well have remonstrated with a storm. The
gate-post grandsire had charge of Dorothy.

"And what is to be the end of this intrigue?" asked Mrs. Hanway-Harley.

"It is no more an intrigue," protested Dorothy, her eyes flashing, "than
was your marriage to papa, or the marriage of Aunt Dorothy with Uncle
Pat. Oh, mamma," she cried appealingly, "can't you see we love each
other!"

Mrs. Hanway-Harley was a trifle touched, but it was her maternal duty to
conceal it. She steadied herself to a severe sobriety, and, with the
manner of one injured to the verge of martyrdom, said with a sigh:

"I shall see this person; I shall send for this Mr. Storms."

"It will be unnecessary," replied Dorothy, turning frigid; "Mr. Storms
will call upon you to-morrow night."

"And does the puppy think that I'll give my consent?" demanded Mrs.
Hanway-Harley, angrily aghast at the insolence of Richard.

"Now I don't know what the 'puppy' thinks," returned Dorothy, from whom
the anger of her mother struck sympathetic sparks, "but I told him I
would marry him without it."

In a whirl of indignation, Mrs. Hanway-Harley burst in upon Senator
Hanway. That ambitious gentleman was employed in abstruse calculations
as to tariff schedules, and how far they might