Suppose I call on you about four or half-past ?" "Very well, sir." But both Ethel and Ruth wondered if it was "very well." A shadow, fleeting as thought, had passed over Judge Rawdon's face when he heard the request for a business interview, and after the young man's departure he lost himself in a reverie which was evidently not a happy one.

But he said nothing to the girls, and they were not accustomed to question him.
The next morning, instead of going direct to his office, he stopped at Madam, his moth-er's house in Gramercy Park.

A visit at such an early hour was unusual, and the old lady looked at him in alarm.
"We are well, mother," he said as she rose.

"I called to talk to you about a little business." Whereupon Madam sat down, and became suddenly about twenty years younger, for "business" was a word like a watch-cry; she called all her senses together when it was uttered in her presence.
"Business!" she ejaculated sharply.

"Whose business ?" "I think I may say the business of the whole family." "Nay, I am not in it.