and then tiptoed
softly from the chamber.

CHAPTER XVI.

"I'VE HAD SUCH LUCK!"

One day Mr. Fern came home in a state of great excitement. He had not
acted naturally for a long time and Daisy, who met him at the door,
wondered what could be the cause of his strange manner. He caught his
daughter in his arms and kissed her like a lover. Tears came to his
eyes, but they were tears of joy. He laughed hysterically as he wiped
them away and told her not to mind him, for he was the happiest man in
New York.

"I've had such luck!" he exclaimed, when she stared at him. "Oh, Daisy,
I've had such grand luck!"

She led him to a seat on a sofa and waited for him to tell her more.

"You can't imagine the relief I feel," he continued, when he had caught
sufficient breath. "I've had an awful time in business for years, but
to-day everything is all cleared up. The house over our heads was
mortgaged; the notes I owed Boggs were almost due; I had given out
paper that I could see no way of meeting. And now it is all provided
for, I am out of financial danger, and I have enough to quit business
and live in ease and comfort with my family the rest of my days!"

Daisy could only look her surprise. She could not understand such a
transformation. But she loved her father dearly, and seeing that he was
happy made her happy, too; though she had had her own sorrows of late.

"Tell me about it, father," she said, putting an arm around his neck.

"You couldn't understand, no matter how much I tried to make it clear,"
he answered, excitedly. "There was a combination that meant ruin or
success, depending on the cast of a die, as one might say. Wool has been
in a bad way. Congress had the tariff bill before it. If higher
protection was put on, the stocks in the American market would rise. If
the tariff rate was lowered they would fall. I took the right side. I
bought an immense quantity of options. The bill passed to-day and the
President signed it. Wool went up, and I am richer by two hundred and
fifty thousand dollars than I was yesterday!"

For answer the girl kissed him affectionately, and for a few moments
neither of them spoke.

"I don't wonder you say I can't understand business," said Daisy,
presently. "It would puzzle most feminine brains, I think, to know how a
man could purchase quantities of wool when he had nothing to buy with."

The father drew himself suddenly away from her, and gazed in a sort of
alarm into her