t.

The business was soon disposed of, and then Mrs. Winnie asked Montague
if he had any place to go to for dinner that evening: which was the
occasion of his mentioning the Jack Evanses. "O dear me!" said Mrs.
Winnie, with a laugh. "Is Ollie going to take you there? What a funny
time you'll have!"

"Do you know them?" asked the other.

"Heavens, no!" was the answer. "Nobody knows them; but everybody knows
about them. My husband meets old Evans in business, of course, and
thinks he's a good sort. But the family--dear me!"

"How much of it is there?"

"Why, there's the old lady, and two grown daughters and a son. The
son's a fine chap, they say--the old man took him in hand and put him
at work in the shops. But I suppose he thought that daughters were too
much of a proposition for him, and so he sent them to a fancy
school--and, I tell you, they're the most highly polished human
specimens that ever you encountered!"

It sounded entertaining. "But what does Oliver want with them?" asked
Montague, wonderingly.

"It isn't that he wants them--they want him. They're cumbers, you
know--perfectly frantic. They've come to town to get into Society."

"Then you mean that they pay Oliver?" asked Montague.

"I don't know that," said the other, with a laugh. "You'll have to ask
Ollie. They've a number of the little brothers of the rich hanging
round them, picking up whatever plunder's in sight."

A look of pain crossed Montague's face; and she saw it, and put out her
hand with a sudden gesture. "Oh!" she exclaimed, "I've offended you!"

"No," said he, "it's not that exactly--I wouldn't be offended. But I'm
worried about my brother."

"How do you mean?"

"He gets a lot of money somehow, and I don't know what it means."

The woman sat for a few moments in silence, watching him. "Didn't he
have any when he came here?" she asked.

"Not very much," said he.

"Because," she went on, "if he didn't, he certainly managed it very
cleverly--we all thought he had."

Again there was a pause; then suddenly Mrs. Winnie said: "Do you know,
you feel differently about money from the way we do in New York. Do you
realize it?"

"I'm not sure," said he. "How do you mean?"

"You look at it in an old-fashioned sort of way--a person has to earn
it--it's a sign of something he's done. It came to me just now, all in
a flash--we don't feel that way about money. We haven't any of us
earned ours; we've just got it. And it never occurs to