shall go 'round to the
piers and see if I can't get a job at smashin' baggage."

"But I shouldn't think any one would want to do that," said Florence,
puzzled.

"It's what we boys call it. It's just carryin' valises and bundles.
Sometimes I show strangers the way to Broadway. Last week an old man
paid me a dollar to show him the way to the Cooper Institute. He was a
gentleman, he was. I'd like to meet him ag'in. Good-by, Miss Florence;
I'll be back some time this afternoon."

"And I must be goin', too," said Mrs. O'Keefe. "I can't depend on that
Kitty; she's a wild slip of a girl, and just as like as not I'll find
a dozen apples stole when I get back. I hope you won't feel lonely, my
dear."

"I think I will lie down a while," said Florence. "I have a headache."

She threw herself on the bed, and a feeling of loneliness and
desolation came over her.

Her new friends were kind, but they could not make up to her for her
uncle's love, so strangely lost, and the home she had left behind.

Chapter X.
The Arch Conspirator.

In the house on Madison Avenue, Curtis Waring was left in possession
of the field. Through his machinations Florence had been driven from
home and disinherited.

He was left sole heir to his uncle's large property with the prospect
of soon succeeding, for though only fifty-four, John Linden looked at
least ten years older, and was as feeble as many men past seventy.

Yet, as Curtis seated himself at the breakfast table an hour after
Florence had left the house, he looked far from happy or triumphant.

One thing he had not succeeded in, the conquest of his cousin's heart.
Though he loved himself best, he was really in love with Florence, so
far as he was capable of being in love with any one.

She was only half his age--scarcely that--but he persuaded himself
that the match was in every way suitable.

He liked to fancy her at the head of his table, after the death of his
uncle, which he anticipated in a few months at latest.

The more she appeared to dislike him, the more he determined to marry
her, even against her will.

She was the only one likely to inherit John Linden's wealth, and by
marrying her he would make sure of it.

Yet she had been willing to leave the home of her youth, to renounce
luxury for a life of poverty, rather than to marry him.

When he thought of this his face became set and its expression stern
and determined.

"Florence shall yet be mine," he declare