business. If he was only a young minister now, there'd be no difficulty
about it. Let any man, young or old, in a clerical white cravat, step up
to Myrtle Hazard, and ask her to be miserable in his company through this
wretched life, and aunt Silence would very likely give them her blessing,
and add something to it that the man in the white cravat would think
worth even more than that was. But I don't know what she'll say to
Bradshaw. Perhaps he 'd better have a hint to go to meeting a little
more regularly. However, I suppose he knows what he's about."

He was thinking all this over when a visitor was announced, and Mr. Byles
Gridley entered the study.

"Good evening, Mr. Penhallow," Mr. Gridley said, wiping his forehead.
"Quite warm, is n't it, this evening?"

"Warm!" said Mr. Penhallow, "I should think it would freeze pretty thick
to-night. I should have asked you to come up to the fire and warm
yourself. But take off your coat, Mr. Gridley,--very glad to see you.
You don't come to the house half as often as you come to the office. Sit
down, sit down."

Mr. Gridley took off his outside coat and sat down. "He does look warm,
does n't he?" Mr. Penhallow thought. "Wonder what has heated up the old
gentleman so. Find out quick enough, for he always goes straight to
business."

"Mr. Penhallow," Mr. Gridley began at once, "I have come on a very grave
matter, in which you are interested as well as myself, and I wish to lay
the whole of it before you as explicitly as I can, so that we may settle
this night before I go what is to be done. I am afraid the good standing
of your partner, Mr. William Murray Bradshaw, is concerned in the matter.
Would it be a surprise to you, if he had carried his acuteness in some
particular case like the one I am to mention beyond the prescribed
limits?"

The question was put so diplomatically that there was no chance for an
indignant denial of the possibility of Mr. Bradshaw's being involved in
any discreditable transaction.

"It is possible," he answered, "that Bradshaw's keen wits may have
betrayed him into sharper practice than I should altogether approve in
any business we carried on together. He is a very knowing young man, but
I can't think he is foolish enough, to say nothing of his honesty, to
make any false step of the kind you seem to hint. I think he might on
occasion go pretty near the line, but I don't believe he would cross it."

"Permit me a few questions, M