a possible husband, and the amiable Gertrude had
taunted her with dependence in the future. Irene had sold some diamonds,
and travelled on the proceeds.

"I think you were very short-sighted, Irene," said Mrs. Minor when she
had drawn this story out of her sister. "A handsome American girl does
stand a better chance for matrimony abroad than here. So many fortunes
have been lost in the panic, and certainly I cannot blame these men for
choosing heiresses. You have been in society a great deal here, and you
will find fresh young girls beginning to crowd you out. Fred has
nothing, and from present indications will hardly be able to take care
of himself. It was such a misfortune that papa had every thing
mortgaged! So Gertrude was right," in a bitterly suave tone: "you must
be dependent upon some one until you do marry."

"Oh, no! I might set up millinery,--with my taste and aptitude for
arrangement. I think I have read of reduced young women who made
fortunes in that line," retorted Irene the queenly, in her unmoved way.
She was not one to cry out at a dagger-thrust.

"Don't be a fool!" advised Mrs. Minor, in a short, incisive tone.

She, like most other people, had meant to economize this summer; but now
she made a sudden start for Newport. Irene certainly was peerless in her
half-mourning, with her statuesque figure. But there was not an eligible
at Newport, so they turned their steps Saratoga-ward. And here they
found an old admirer of Mrs. Minor's, Gordon Barringer, a widower for
the second time, the owner of a silver-mine and a railroad, and Heaven
alone knew the length and breadth of his possessions.

Miss Agatha Lawrence had turned up her aristocratic nose at him, as a
rather coarse and self-assured person, as proud of his want of education
as other men were of its acquirement. Now he was about forty, stout,
high-colored, loud of voice, and with an important swagger. But money
had given "our enterprising citizen" power, and he both understood and
wielded it skilfully.

His wife had been dead barely six months, but when he met Irene Lawrence
he decided at once that the penniless beauty would be only too glad to
marry him. He was proud to think he could afford to be so magnanimous.
Mrs. Minor settled herself to the fact that there must be no foolish
dallying. Of course Irene _would_ see. She could not be so idiotically,
so fatally blind!

I do not know that at this period of her life Irene Lawrence had any
ide