s feeble and on her deathbed she had entrusted her orphaned
daughter as well as her daughter's fortune to the guardianship of Eunice
MacGregor. This proved a most acceptable trust to Eunice. In the first
place, it made her financially independent of her husband, and in the
second place, it gave her the opportunity to exercise the talent in the
proper rearing and training of a child, which the Lord in his infinite
wisdom has denied to mothers and has bestowed in such unstinted measure
upon those to whom motherhood has been denied.

Her ward developed ideas with the years that came to her. She saw
clearly the more glaring defects of Mrs. MacGregor's character, but
never suspecting dishonesty, she left to her guardian the stewardship of
her large fortune. She regarded it as an easy way of discharging a debt
and enabling Mrs. MacGregor to receive as a stipend what she might
hesitate to accept as a gift.

On her part, Mrs. MacGregor had taken full measure of her maturing ward.
She knew that sooner or later, marriage was a certainty and that with
marriage her stewardship would cease. She was, therefore, casting about
her to make the most of her tenure of office. She had heard of Elijah's
success in California and her heart was profoundly moved. She quickly
became convinced that California was the opportunity for which she had
so long and anxiously waited, and to California she accordingly betook
herself accompanied, somewhat to her surprise, by Uncle Sid. Mrs.
MacGregor was not wholly pleased with the idea of being accompanied by
her nautical brother; but then--who of us is unhampered by undesirable
relatives?

Mrs. MacGregor's veiled advances to Elijah were rapidly having the
effect which her designing mind had forecast; more and more he was
coming to lean upon her; more and more he was coming to be guided by
her.

Perhaps he was not conscious that an engagement to meet and talk over
business matters with Mrs. MacGregor, was shaping his meditations with
regard to the fifty thousand dollars concealed in his private box.
Perhaps he was not conscious that he was proposing to do what he knew to
be wrong and then, if things went against him, to say, as did our common
ancestor, "The woman tempted me."

As he drove up to the Rio Vista on the day of his engagement with Mrs.
MacGregor, Elijah was placid under his old refuge. In the progress of
his day he would be guided. Unfortunately for Elijah, in the progress of
her day, Mrs