ere no younger brother of your son-in-law whom
you might introduce to Miss May Newt? I beg your pardon, she is Miss
Newt, now that her sister is so happily married," said Boniface Newt,
bowing ceremoniously to his daughter.

Mrs. Newt clasped her hands in an utterly helpless despair, and
unconsciously raised them in a beseeching attitude before her.

"The husband's duty takes him away from home," continued Mr. Newt.
"While he is struggling for the maintenance of his family he supposes
that his wife is caring for his children, and that she has, at least, the
smallest speck of an idea of what is necessary to be done to make them
tolerably well behaved. Some husbands are doomed to be mistaken."

Boniface Newt bowed, and smiled sarcastically.

"Yes, and as if it were not enough to have my wife such a model
trainer--and my son so careful--and my daughter so obedient--and my
younger daughter so affectionate--I must also have trials in my business.
I expected a great loan from Van Boozenberg's bank, and I haven't got it.
He's an old driveling fool. Mrs. Newt, you must curtail expenses. There's
one mouth less, and one Stewart's bill less, at any rate."

"Father," said May, as if she could not bear the cool cutting adrift of
her sister from the family, "Fanny is not dead."

"No," replied her father, sullenly. "No, the more's the--"

He stopped, for he caught May's eye, and he could not finish the
sentence.

"Mr. Newt," said his wife, at length, "perhaps Alfred Dinks is not poor."

That was the chance, but Mr. Newt was skeptical. He had an instinctive
suspicion that no rich young man, however much a booby, would have
married Fanny clandestinely. Men are forced to know something of their
reputations, and Boniface Newt was perfectly aware that it was generally
understood he had no aversion to money. He knew also that he was reputed
rich, that his family were known to live expensively, and he was quite
shrewd enough to believe that any youth in her own set who ran off with
his daughter did so because he depended upon her father's money. He was
satisfied that the Newt family was not to be a gainer by the new
alliance. The more he thought of it the more he was convinced, and the
more angry he became. He was still storming, when the door was thrown
open and Mrs. Dagon rushed in.

"What does it all mean?" asked she.

Mr. Newt stopped in his walk, smiled contemptuously, and pointed to his
wife, who sat with her handkerchief o