of wine from Madeira on the pier or in the
cellars. Gentlemen came to taste it, men with historic names--General
Wayne, Colonel Lear for the President, and Mr. Justice Yeates. De
Courval was bade to knock out bungs and dip in tasting vials. Also Miss
Wynne came to refill her cellar, but took small notice of him. He was
out of favor for a season, and her nephew had laughed at her
remonstrances.

"A thoroughbred put to the work of a farm-horse!"

"Nonsense, Aunt Gainor! Let him alone. You can not spoil him, as you did
me. There is stuff in the fellow worth a dozen of my clerks. At six they
are gone. If there is work to do, he stays till nine. What that man
wants, he will get. What he sets himself to do, he does. Let him alone."

"A miserably paid clerk," she cried. "He deserves no better. I wash my
hands of him."

"There is soap in the closet," he laughed.

She went away angry, and saw the young noble talking with a ruddy
gentleman whose taste in wine has made his name familiar at the
dining-tables of the last hundred years. Major Butler was asking the
vicomte to dine, and promising a perilous education in the vintages of
Madeira.

When the major had gone, Mr. Wynne sent for his clerk. To be opposed was
apt to stiffen his Welsh obstinacy. "Your wages are to be now, sir, two
hundred and fifty livres,--fifty dollars a month,--and you are doing
well, very well; but the clerks are not to know, except Mr. Potts." He
owed this unusual advance to Miss Wynne, but probably the master was as
little aware of what had caused it as was the irate spinster. De Courval
thanked him quietly, knowing perfectly well that he had fairly earned
what was so pleasantly given.

It was now the Saturday sennight mentioned by Margaret as the day when
Mr. Hamilton was to come to settle certain small business matters with
Mrs. Swanwick. Some wit, or jealous dame, as Schmidt had said, called
Mrs. Swanwick's the Quaker salon; and, in fact, men of all types of
opinion came hither. Friends there were, the less strict, and at times
some, like Waln, to protest in their frank way against the too frequent
company of world's people, and to go away disarmed by gentle firmness.
Mrs. Swanwick's love of books and her keen interest in every new thing,
and now the opening mind and good looks of Margaret, together with the
thoughtful neutrality of Schmidt, captured men, young and old, who were
apt to come especially on a Saturday afternoon, when there was leis