cion of South Framingham whose amazement is recorded. John M. Hurd,
still smiling faintly, sat reflectively eyeing the little pile of
checks which his visitor had left, until at last he rang for his
cashier.

"Endorse these and have them deposited immediately, Mr. Walsh," he said.

Meanwhile the telephone wires were buzzing under Mr. Wilkinson's
energetic advertisement of the latest society note.

"Extry! Extry!" he announced to Isabel. "All about the reconciliation
of trust magnate with beautiful though erring daughter! Extry! All
about the soothing and emollient influence of a little packet of
stamped paper! No, I've not gone suddenly insane, and I'll come home
about four, for we are due for tea at the residence of Mr. and Mrs.
John M. Hurd."

To Deerfield Street, also, the glad word presently went, to meet there
the sincere congratulations of Miss Helen Maitland, who held the other
end of the jubilant telephone.

"You'd better come, too, Helen. We'll stop for you. I really think it
would be much smoother if you were along. And besides, Charlie says we
ought to get father on record before a witness in case a conservative
turn takes him again."

"I was rather expecting to have tea here," Miss Maitland confessed,
after a moment's hesitancy. "Yes, Mr. Smith said he would probably
come. Very well--I will bring him along, if you'd really like to have
him, with great pleasure. You'll call for us, Isabel? Au revoir,
then."

It was shortly after five o'clock when the Hurds' butler opened the
front door to admit a company of four. These intruders, waiting no
bidding and ignoring altogether the fact that one of their number had
been forbidden the house, made their cheerful way, headed by Mrs.
Wilkinson, into the drawing room, there to greet with effusive welcome
a stern-faced, elderly lady, who met them with a broad smile, but who
almost instantly, to her own infinite surprise and discomfiture, burst
into tears. These rapidly abated, when there was heard a sound in the
hall, a sound which the quick ears of Mr. Wilkinson distinguished at
once.

"The lion comes!" he murmured in Isabel's ear; and an involuntary hush
descended upon the company. Thud, thud, thud--the firm steps
approached; the arras was drawn back by a deliberate hand; and into the
drawing room, his manner as easy and composed as ever, came Mr. Hurd.
Two steps he made inside the room, then stopped. His glance instantly
comprehended the li