father."

"Goodness gracious, no," protested Lena. "You don't know him--he'll be
crazy--just crazy! We must wait till he finds out about you--then
he'll be very proud. He wanted a son-in-law of high social standing--a
gentleman."

"We will go home, I tell you," replied Feuerstein firmly--his tone was
now the tone of the master. All the sentiment was out of it and all
the hardness in it.

Lena felt the change without understanding it. "I bet you, pa'll make
you wish you'd taken my advice," she said sullenly.

But Feuerstein led her home. They went up stairs where Mrs. Ganser was
seated, looking stupidly at a new bonnet as she turned it slowly round
on one of her cushion-like hands. Feuerstein went to her and kissed
her on the hang of her cheek. "Mother!" he said in a deep, moving
voice.

Mrs. Ganser blinked and looked helplessly at Lena.

"I'm married, ma," explained Lena.

"It's Mr. Feuerstein." And she gave her silly laugh.

Mrs. Ganser grew slowly pale. "Your father," she at last succeeded in
articulating. "Ach!" She lifted her arm, thick as a piano leg, and
resumed the study of her new bonnet.

"Won't you welcome me, mother?" asked Feuerstein, his tone and attitude
dignified appeal.

Mrs. Ganser shook her huge head vaguely. "See Peter," was all she said.

They went down stairs and waited, Lena silent, Feuerstein pacing the
room and rehearsing, now aloud, now to himself, the scene he would
enact with his father-in-law. Peter was in a frightful humor that
evening. His only boy, who spent his mornings in sleep, his afternoons
in speeding horses and his evenings in carousal, had come down upon him
for ten thousand dollars to settle a gambling debt. Peter was willing
that his son should be a gentleman and should conduct himself like one.
But he had worked too hard for his money not to wince as a plain man at
what he endured and even courted as a seeker after position for the
house of Ganser. He had hoped to be free to vent his ill-humor at
home. He was therefore irritated by the discovery that an outsider was
there to check him. As he came in he gave Feuerstein a look which said
plainly:

"And who are you, and how long are you going to intrude yourself?"

But Feuerstein, absorbed in the role he had so carefully thought out,
did not note his unconscious father-in-law's face. He extended both
his hands and advanced grandly upon fat, round Peter. "My father!" he
exclaimed in his classic