.

.

." "Yet, yesterday, you would have called him out," continued Madame Langai teasingly.
"Yes, I was angry with him then, but there are circumstances which may reconcile a couple of would-be duellists, are there not ?" "Oh, certainly, if a man is a man of business before all things, or has perhaps a valuable house or two on his hands." "This has nothing to do with business or selling houses.

If you must know," he continued, lowering his voice, "it is about something entirely different, but of the very greatest importance." "Indeed ?" returned Madame Langai, "a new Alexander the Great, I suppose, who has gone forth to conquer, and who has come to look not for a house, but for a house and home perhaps ?" She thought to herself that it was some adventurer whom her brother John would palm off upon her as a husband so as to get her away from the old man.
"Something of the sort," replied John.

"Yes, you have guessed half--but the wrong half." "I am glad to hear it." "Ah!" put in the old man sarcastically, "Matilda will never marry again, I'm sure; she loves her old dad too much and feels far too happy at home to do that." "Ho, ho, ho!" laughed John scornfully, "I did not mean Matilda, I was not thinking of her.