father had always worn, and
which the coroner took from the vest pocket of the dead, dabbled with
blood. The gold chain had been sold long before, and the son wore it
attached to a simple black ribbon. His employer received the watch, locked
it in the iron safe, and Russell fastened a small weight to the ribbon, and
kept it around his neck that his mother might not suspect the truth. It
chanced that Cecil stood near at the time; he saw the watch deposited in
the safe, whistled a tune, fingered his own gold repeater, and walked away.
Such was Russell Aubrey's history; such his situation at the beginning of
his seventeenth year.

CHAPTER II

IRENE'S FRIENDSHIP

"Irene, your father will be displeased if he sees you in that plight."

"Pray, what is wrong about me now? You seem to glory in finding fault. What
is the matter with my 'plight' as you call it?"

"You know very well your father can't bear to see you carrying your own
satchel and basket to school. He ordered Martha to take them every morning
and evening, but she says you will not let her carry them. It is just sheer
obstinacy in you."

"There it is again! because I don't choose to be petted like a baby, or
made a wax doll of, it is set down to obstinacy, as if I had the temper of
a heathen. See here, Aunt Margaret, I am tired of having Martha tramping
eternally at my heels as though I were a two-year-old child. There is no
reason in her walking after me when I am strong enough to carry my own
books, and I don't intend she shall do it any longer."

Irene Huntingdon stood on the marble steps of her palatial home, and talked
with the maiden aunt who governed her father's household. The girl was
about fourteen, tall for her age, straight, finely-formed, slender. The
broad straw hat shaded but by no means concealed her features, and as she
looked up at her aunt the sunshine fell upon a face of extraordinary
beauty, such as is rarely seen, save in the idealized heads of the old
masters. Her eyes were strangely, marvellously beautiful; they were larger
than usual, and of that rare shade of purplish blue which borders the white
velvet petals of a clematis. When the eyes were uplifted, as on this
occasion, long, curling lashes of the bronze hue of her hair rested against
her brow. Save the scarlet lines which marked her lips, her face was of
that clear colourlessness which can be likened only to the purest ivory.
Though there was an utter absence of the rosy