d wholly unsuspicious.
He is no match for us. If madame deserts her home for Paris and Rome,
ma foi! it is _our_ opportunity."

The speaker's dark face flushed, and her eyes glittered. Monsieur
Robin returned to the foundry with his figure rather more erect than
usual. Feminine enthusiasm is frequently contagious.

In the mean while Henry Denvil had reached his place of business. The
European mail also brought him a letter from his wife, inclosing
another from his little Cecilia. In this home correspondence Mrs.
Denvil always dwelt on the development of her children. Was she not
living abroad to educate them? Was she not wintering in Rome to
benefit Cecilia's delicate throat? For this end she required more and
more money.

Mr. Denvil read his daughter's note first, and smiled at the request
that he should come to Rome for Christmas-day. Then he leaned his head
on his hand, and tapped his desk with his penknife, absently. How the
years slipped away! What had he to anticipate in the clouded future?
Would these children, now receiving a foreign education, ever return
contentedly to live at Foundryville? Well, they were Augusta's
children, and she was an ambitious mother. He made no complaint at
the prolonged absence of his family; he was used to it. He never
failed to send the required remittances. "The money belongs to
Augusta," he always said to himself. Besides, his own expenses were
small. One by one the rooms of his large house had been closed through
disuse, and a half-grown boy waited on him in the wing. Dust had
settled on the rich furniture ordered years ago with such pride to
make a fitting nest for his bride; rust gnawed the mute strings of his
daughter's piano; the conservatory had been abandoned; the garden was
neglected. Henry Denvil had never been an epicure; now he lived from
hand to mouth.

Seventeen years before, he had arrived at Foundryville, a man of
forty, who had worked hard for the money he was prepared to invest in
the foundry. The death of the previous owner compelled his widow to
sell out at a sacrifice. Henry Denvil made a good bargain, instituted
energetic reforms in the works, lived altogether at Foundryville,
gained the confidence of his miners and "hands" by being one of them,
and prospered. His predecessor's widow adjusted the exchange of
property in the presence of her daughter Augusta, a beautiful girl of
eighteen. Plain Henry Denvil, accustomed to toil-worn women in calico
gowns, w