ers are sent to him at the
office. I don't know that I altogether like that arrangement. It looks
as if he were deceiving his parents." All this was an unmitigated lie,
but Girdlestone had gone too far now to stick at trifles.

"Who is the lady?" asked Kate, with a calm set face but a quivering lip.

"A cousin of his. Miss Ossary is her name, I believe. I am not sorry,
for it may be a sign that he has sown all his wild oats. Do you know at
one time, Kate, I feared that he might take a fancy to you. He has a
specious way with him, and I felt my responsibility in the matter."

"You need not be afraid on that score," Kate said bitterly. "I think I
can gauge Mr. Dimsdale's specious manner at its proper value." With
this valiant speech she marched off, head in air, to her room, and there
wept as though her very heart would break.

John Girdlestone told his son of this scene as they walked home from
Fenchurch Street that same day. "We must look sharp over it," he said,
"or that young fool may get impatient and upset our plans."

"It's not such an easy matter," said his son gloomily. "I get along so
far, but no further. It's a more uphill job than I expected."

"Why, you had a bad enough name among women," the merchant said, with
something approaching to a sneer. "I have been grieved times out of
number by your looseness in that respect. I should have thought that
you might have made your experience of some use now."

"There are women and women," his son remarked. "A girl like this takes
as much managing as a skittish horse."

"Once get her into harness, and I warrant you'll keep her there quiet
enough."

"You bet," said Ezra, with a loud laugh. "But at present she has the
pull. Her mind is still running on that fellow."

"She spoke bitterly enough of him this morning."

"So she might, but she thinks of him none the less. If I could once
make her thoroughly realize that he had thrown her over I might catch
her on the hop. She'd marry for spite if she wouldn't for love."

"Just so; just so. Wait a bit. That can be managed, I think, if you
will leave it to me."

The old man brooded over the problem all day, for from week to week the
necessity for the money was becoming more pressing, and that money could
only be hoped for through the success of Ezra's wooing. No wonder that
every little detail which might sway the balance one way or the other
was anxiously pondered over by the head of the firm