CHAPTER I.
THROWN ON THE WORLD "Miss Winnifred," said the Old Lawyer, looking keenly over and through his shaggy eyebrows at the fair young creature seated before him, "you are this morning twenty-one." Winnifred Clair raised her deep mourning veil, lowered her eyes and folded her hands.
"This morning," continued Mr.Bonehead, "my guardianship is at an end." There was a tone of something like emotion in the voice of the stern old lawyer, while for a moment his eye glistened with something like a tear which he hastened to remove with something like a handkerchief.

"I have therefore sent for you," he went on, "to render you an account of my trust." He heaved a sigh at her, and then, reaching out his hand, he pulled the woollen bell-rope up and down several times.
An aged clerk appeared.
"Did the bell ring ?" he asked.
"I think it did," said the Lawyer.

"Be good enough, Atkinson, to fetch me the papers of the estate of the late Major Clair defunct." "I have them here," said the clerk, and he laid upon the table a bundle of faded blue papers, and withdrew.
"Miss Winnifred," resumed the Old Lawyer, "I will now proceed to give you an account of the disposition that has been made of your property.
This first document refers to the sum of two thousand pounds left to you by your great uncle.

It is lost." Winnifred bowed.
"Pray give me your best attention and I will endeavour to explain to you how I lost it." "Oh, sir," cried Winnifred, "I am only a poor girl unskilled in the ways of the world, and knowing nothing but music and French; I fear that the details of business are beyond my grasp.

But if it is lost, I gather that it is gone." "It is," said Mr.Bonehead.