ey were very neatly tied up,
however. He wished Mrs. Jim would stick to her legitimate business which
she did uncommonly well.

"I think I would sell out my 'H. O. P.' if I were you," he said.

"Isn't it going any higher?" she asked.

"Very likely; but it's a swindle."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I mean that the management's bad, and they don't know the first
thing about what they've got, any way. Honestly, Mrs. Jim, it isn't safe
to hold."

Marietta's heart sank; if she sold her stock what was to become of the
little house with the two windows in the sitting-room? She did not
reply, and Dayton went on:

"Of course," he said; "I can't tell that the thing won't go to a dollar,
but there is really no basis for it. I've sold out every share I held,
and I don't regret it, though it has gone up ten points since then."

Marietta regarded him attentively. There was no mistaking his
sincerity,--and he probably knew what he was talking about.

"Well," she said at last, with a profound sigh; "I guess I'll do as you
say. It worked pretty well the other time."

"That's right, Mrs. Jim, and supposing you let me have your stock. I can
probably get you fifty cents for it in the course of the day."

She took the certificate from a drawer close at hand, and having signed
it, she gave one lingering farewell look at the green lady and her
golden horn.

"I may as well write a check for the amount now," Dayton said.

"But maybe you can't get it."

"More likely to get a little over. If I do I'll bring it in."

Dayton looked into her face as he spoke, and its beauty struck him as
pathetic. There were lines and shadows there which he had not noticed
before.

"I wish, Mrs. Jim," he said, "that you wouldn't do anything more in
mines; it's an awfully risky business at the best. There isn't one of us
that knows the first thing about it."

She gave him a sceptical look; was he so entirely sincere, after all?

"Some of you know enough about it to make an awful lot of money in it,"
she answered quietly.

"That isn't knowledge," he declared; "it's luck!"

"Comes to the same thing in the end," said Marietta.

If it had not been for those pathetic lines and shadows, Dayton would
have turned on his heel then and there, disgusted with what seemed to
him unfeminine shrewdness. As it was, he said: "Well, then, why not let
me be your broker? I'm on the street half the time, and I could attend
to your business a great deal better t