took up a copy
of the _Argonaut_.

"You are interested in Miss Aylmer. Have you read her story--the first
story she has ever published?" she asked.

"No," he replied; "is it there?"

"It is. The reviews are praising it. She will do very well as a writer."

Kitty Sharston and her father appeared at that moment.

"Look, Miss Sharston," exclaimed Trevor; "you know Miss Aylmer. This is
her story: have you read it?"

"I have not," said Kitty; "how interesting! I did not know that the
number of the _Argonaut_ had come. Florence told me she was writing in
it." She took up the number and turned the pages.

"Oh!" she exclaimed once or twice.

Trevor stood near.

Bertha went and warmed herself by the fire.

"Oh!" said Kitty, "this is good." Then she began to laugh. "Only I wish
she were not quite so bitter," she exclaimed, a moment later. "It is
wonderfully clever. Read it; do read it, Mr. Trevor."

Trevor was all-impatient to do so. He took the magazine when Kitty
handed it to him, and began to read rapidly. Soon he was absorbed in the
tale. As he proceeded with it an angry flush deepened on his cheeks.

"What is the matter?" said Bertha, who, for reasons of her own, was
watching this little scene with interest.

"I don't like the tone of this," he said. "Of course it is clever."

"It is very clever; and what does the tone matter?" said Bertha. "You
are one of those painfully priggish people, Mr. Trevor, who will never
get on in the world. Have you not yet discovered that being extra good
does not pay?"

"I am not extra good; but being good pays in the long run," he answered.
He darted an indignant glance at Bertha Keys and left the hall. Scarcely
knowing why he did so, he strode into Mrs. Aylmer's boudoir. Bertha's
desk, covered with papers, attracted his attention. There was a book
lying near which she was reading. He picked it up, and was just turning
away when a scrap of thin paper scribbled over in Bertha's well-known
hand arrested his eye. Before he meant to do so he found that he had
read a sentence on this paper. There was a sharpness and subtlety in the
wording of the sentence which puzzled him for a moment, until he was
suddenly startled by the resemblance to the style of the story in the
_Argonaut_ which he had just read. He scarcely connected the two yet,
but his heart sank lower in his breast. He thought for a moment; then,
opening his pocket-book, he placed the torn scrap of paper in it and
went