he next payments are to be made."

"I had not thought of that."

"The house of Lindsay & Co. has never known dishonor"--

The merchant wiped his spectacles,--but it was the eyes that were dim,
not the glasses. His lips quivered and his breath came hard, as he
continued,--

"But the time has come; the house must go down."

"I hope not," said Monroe, fervently. "Can nothing be done?"

"Nothing. Every resource has been used. The banks won't discount; and I
suppose they can't; they are fully as weak as their customers."

"I don't know but the offer may be useless, contemptible, even; but I
have a small sum, in good notes, that may be available."

The merchant shook his head.

"Whatever it is, you are welcome to it. Perhaps ten thousand dollars"--

"Ten thousand dollars!" exclaimed Mr. Lindsay,--"_you_ have that sum?"

"Yes,--the little property that was my father's. Let me go and get the
notes, and see if I can't get some money upon them."

Mr. Lindsay rose and took the clerk's hand with a heartiness that
astonished him.

"God bless you, Monroe," he said. "I may be saved, after all. Ten
thousand dollars will be enough for the present pinch, and before the
next acceptance is due some relief may come."

"Don't speak of thanks. I'll get the notes in a moment."

Tears stole silently down the unaccustomed furrows; the gateway of
feeling was open, but the tremulous lips refused to speak. Before he
could recover his self-possession, Monroe was gone. Mr. Lindsay tried to
read the newspapers, but the print before his eyes conveyed no idea to
his preoccupied brain. Then his thoughts turned to his beautiful villa
in Brookline, and he remembered how that morning his daughter stepped
lightly into the brougham with him at the back piazza, rode down the
winding path between the evergreen-hedges, and, after giving him a kiss,
sprang out when they reached the gate. He knew, that, when he returned
in the evening, he should find her in her place under the great
horse-chestnut, at the foot of the hill, ready to ride to the house. How
could he meet her with the news he would have to carry? how crush the
spirits of his invalid wife? Humiliating as the idea of failure was when
considered in his relations with the mercantile world, the thought of
home, with its changed feelings and circumstances, and the probable
deprivation of habitual indulgences, was far more poignant.

It was not long before Monroe returned, but with a less b