He held up a twenty. The smiling face
nodded assent, and the bright eyes twinkled.

"No, it won't. But _that_ will," he continued, giving her a fifty.

"Fifty dollars, Globe Bank, Boston!" exclaimed Netty, making great
eyes at him. "But we must take all we can get, pa-sy; mustn't we?
It's too much, though. Thank you all the same, pa-sy, nevertheless."
And she kissed him, and put the bill in a little bit of a portemonnaie
with a gay laugh.

"Well done, I declare!" he said, smilingly. "But you're going to
the party?"

"Pretty soon, pa."

He made no answer; but sat smiling at her. The phantom watched them,
silently.

"What made pa so cross and grim, to-night? Tell Netty--do," she
pleaded.

"Oh! because;--everything went wrong with me, to-day. There." And
he looked as sulky, at that moment, as he ever did in his life.

"No, no, pa-sy; that won't do. I want the particulars," continued
Netty, shaking her head, smilingly.

"Particulars! Well, then, Miss Nathalie Renton," he began, with
mock gravity, "your professional father is losing some of his oldest
patients. Everybody is in ruinous good health; and the grass is
growing in the graveyards."

"In the winter time, papa?--smart grass!"

"Not that I want practice," he went on, getting into soliloquy;
"or patients, either. A rich man who took to the profession simply
for the love of it, can't complain on that score. But to have an
interloping she-doctor take a family I've attended ten years, out
of my hands, and to hear the hodge-podge gabble about physiological
laws, and woman's rights, and no taxation without representation,
they learn from her,--well, it's too bad!"

"Is that all, pa-sy? Seems to me _I_'d like to vote, too," was Netty's
piquant rejoinder.

"Hoh! I'll warrant," growled her father. "Hope you'll vote the Whig
ticket, Netty, when you get your rights."

"Will the Union be dissolved, then, pa-sy,--when the Whigs are beaten?"

"Bah! you little plague," he growled, with a laugh. "But, then,
you women don't know anything about politics. So, there. As I was
saying, everything went wrong with me to-day. I've been speculating
in railroad stock, and singed my fingers. Then, old Tom Hollis
outbid me to-day, at Leonard's, on a rare medical work I had set
my eyes upon having. Confound him! Then, again, two of my houses
are tenantless, and there are folks in two others that won't pay
their rent, and I can't get them out. Out they'll go, though, or
I'll k