many other charities, and was adored by her
townspeople.

Four years previous to her visit to New York, she had lost every penny of
her immense fortune,--lost it through the rascality of a large and well
advertised concern calling itself the "Great Western Cereal Company." The
whole thing was a rotten affair from the first and was floated by ten
unscrupulous men who after obtaining all the money they could fled from
the country before the exposure came; that is, save three, one of whom
was arrested while the other two committed suicide. Aunt Susan wrote
nothing of it to her sister lest it should worry her, and as she had
never met her nephew's family in New York, and they knowing no one in
Akron, they were in ignorance of the change in Aunt Susan's affairs and
still thought her a wealthy woman.

Mrs. Archibald Hollister--Ethel's mother--was worldly and ambitious;
not so much for herself as for her daughter. Grand-mother Hollister,
whose husband had belonged to one of New York's oldest families, owned
the house in which they lived, free and clear. It was an old-fashioned
brown-stone affair near Riverside Drive. Archibald, her son, paid the
taxes in lieu of rent, but as his salary was only three thousand a year
it was extremely difficult to make both ends meet, and Grandmother had no
money save what was in the house. But Mrs. Archie was clever. She could
make a dollar do the work of five. With her own hands she would fashion
for Ethel the most dainty and up-to-date gowns, wraps, hats, etc.,
imaginable.

The Hollisters kept but one maid. She always appeared trim and tidy, yet
she did the entire housework. Upon the days that Mrs. Archie gave bridge
parties or afternoon teas for Ethel's young friends, she hired two extra
girls who had been so perfectly trained that the guests never once
doubted but that they were part of the household--allowing to Mrs.
Archie's clever management.

Ethel attended a fashionable school costing her father more money than he
could afford, but she met there the very best class of girls and really
formed for herself the most desirable acquaintances. Her mother scrimped
and saved in every way possible, while the guests who came to the
old-fashioned house with its handsome antique furniture and portraits
were wont to declare that "the Hollisters were certainty aristocratic and
of blue blood, as their house showed it--so severe and yet elegant." So
Mrs. Archie felt that the Hollister name alone sh