he
development of his character that he missed or failed to chuckle over.
Bromfield Cory was poohed and boshed quite out of consideration as a
"loafer," a "dilletanty," but Lapham had all his sympathy.

"Yes, sir," he would exclaim, interrupting the narrative, "that's just
it. That's just what I would have done if I had been in his place.
Come, this chap knows what he's writing about--not like that Middleton
ass, with his 'Dianas' and 'Amazing Marriages.'"

Occasionally the Jadwins entertained. Laura's husband was proud of his
house, and never tired of showing his friends about it. Laura gave Page
a "coming-out" dance, and nearly every Sunday the Cresslers came to
dinner. But Aunt Wess' could, at first, rarely be induced to pay the
household a visit. So much grandeur made the little widow uneasy, even
a little suspicious. She would shake her head at Laura, murmuring:

"My word, it's all very fine, but, dear me, Laura, I hope you do pay
for everything on the nail, and don't run up any bills. I don't know
what your dear father would say to it all, no, I don't." And she would
spend hours in counting the electric bulbs, which she insisted were
only devices for some new-fangled gas.

"Thirty-three in this one room alone," she would say. "I'd like to see
your dear husband's face when he gets his gas bill. And a dressmaker
that lives in the house.... Well,--I don't want to say anything."

Thus three years had gone by. The new household settled to a regime.
Continually Jadwin grew richer. His real estate appreciated in value;
rents went up. Every time he speculated in wheat, it was upon a larger
scale, and every time he won. He was a Bear always, and on those rare
occasions when he referred to his ventures in Laura's hearing, it was
invariably to say that prices were going down. Till at last had come
that spring when he believed that the bottom had been touched, had had
the talk with Gretry, and had, in secret, "turned Bull," with the
suddenness of a strategist.

The matter was yet in Gretry's mind while the party remained in the art
gallery; and as they were returning to the drawing-room he detained
Jadwin an instant.

"If you are set upon breaking your neck," he said, "you might tell me
at what figure you want me to buy for you to-morrow."

"At the market," returned Jadwin. "I want to get into the thing quick."

A little later, when they had all reassembled in the drawing-room, and
while Mrs. Gretry was telling an i