his plant, good will and franchises. I'm going to investigate this
a little further. Do you suppose Bobby will have two hundred thousand
left when he gets through with grand opera?"

"I hope so," replied Agnes; "but if he hasn't I'll have him waste the
balance of this two hundred and fifty thousand so that he can draw the
next one."

Uncle Dan laughed in huge enjoyment of this solution.

"You surely were cut out for high finance," he told her.

She smiled, and was silent a while, hesitating.

"You seem to think pretty well of the business as a business
proposition," she ventured anxiously, by and by; "but you haven't told
me what you think of it as applicable to Bobby."

"If he'll take you in the office with him, he'll do all right," he
answered her banteringly; but when he went up-stairs and found his
wife he said: "Constance, if that girl don't pull Bobby Burnit through
his puppyhood in good shape there is something wrong with the scheme
of creation. There is something about you women of the Elliston family
that every once in a while makes me pause and reverence the Almighty,"
whereupon Aunt Constance flushed prettily, as became her.

With the same earnestness of purpose Agnes handled the question of
Bobby's breach-of-promise suit in so far as it affected his social
reception. The Ellistons went to the theater and sat in a box to
exhibit him on the second night after his return, and Agnes took
careful count of all the people she knew who attended the theater that
night. The next day she went to see all of them, among others Mrs.
Horace Wickersham, whose social word was social law.

"My dear," said the redoubtable Mrs. Wickersham, "it does Bobby Burnit
great credit that he did not marry the creature. Of course I shall
invite him to our affair next Friday night."

After that there could be no further question of Bobby's standing,
though without the firm support of Agnes he might possibly have been
ostracised, for a time at least.

It was with much less certainty that she spread before Bobby the facts
and figures which Uncle Dan had secured about the condition and
prospects of the _Bulletin_. She did not urge the project upon him.
Instead, though in considerable anxiety, she left the proposition open
to his own judgment. He pondered the question more soberly and
seriously than he had yet considered anything. There were but two
chances left to redeem himself now, and he felt much like a gambler
who has been r