iness in Dutch Flat," returned
the cynic. "And I suppose you'd have kept it up every month? Rather
a tall price to pay for looking at a pretty girl once a month! But I
suppose they're scarcer up there than here. All the same, it ain't too
late now. Start up your subscription right here, sonny, and we'll all
ante up."

But Randolph, who seldom followed his heroics to their ultimate prosaic
conclusions, regretted he had spoken, although still unconvinced.
Happily for his temper, he did not hear the comment of the two tellers.

"Won't see HER again, old boy," said one.

"I reckon not," returned the other, "now that she's been chucked by her
fancy man--until she gets another. But cheer up; a girl like that won't
want friends long."

It is not probable that either of these young gentlemen believed what
they said, or would have been personally disrespectful or uncivil to any
woman; they were fairly decent young fellows, but the rigors of business
demanded this appearance of worldly wisdom between themselves. Meantime,
for a week after, Randolph indulged in wild fancies of taking his
benefactor's capital of seventy dollars, adding thirty to it from his
own hard-earned savings, buying a draft with it from the bank for one
hundred dollars, and in some mysterious way getting it to Miss Avondale
as the delayed remittance.

The brief wet winter was nearly spent; the long dry season was due,
although there was still the rare beauty of cloud scenery in the
steel-blue sky, and the sudden return of quick but transient showers.
It was on a Sunday of weather like this that the nature-loving Randolph
extended his usual holiday excursion as far as Contra Costa by the
steamer after his dutiful round of the wharves and shipping. It was with
a gayety born equally of his youth and the weather that he overcame his
constitutional shyness, and not only mingled without restraint among
the pleasure-seekers that thronged the crowded boat, but, in the
consciousness of his good looks and a new suit of clothes,
even penetrated into the aristocratic seclusion of the "ladies'
cabin"--sacred to the fair sex and their attendant swains or chaperones.

But he found every seat occupied, and was turning away, when he suddenly
recognized Miss Avondale sitting beside her little escort. She appeared,
however, in a somewhat constrained attitude, sustaining with one hand
the boy, who had clambered on the seat. He was looking out of the cabin
window, which sh