ard the highest
priced.

'I'll see them both,' Arthur said. 'Take me to their houses;' and in the
course of half an hour he had interviewed both Burchard and Belknap,
and made an appointment with both for the afternoon.

Then he was driven back to Tracy Park, where breakfast had been waiting
until it was spoiled, and the cook's temper was spoiled, too, and when
Frank and Dolly met him at the door, both asked in the same breath:

'Where is she?'

'She was not on this train. She will come on the next. We must go and
meet her,' was Arthur's reply, as he passed up the stairs, while Frank
and his wife looked wonderingly at each other.

The spoiled breakfast was eaten by Mr. and Mrs. Tracy alone, for the
children had had theirs and gone to their lessons, and Arthur had said
that he never took anything in the morning except a cup of coffee and a
roll, and these he wished sent to his room, together with a time-table.

After breakfast Mrs. Tracy, who was suffering from a sick headache,
declared her inability to sit up a moment longer and returned to her
bed, leaving her husband and the servants to bring what order they could
out of the confusion reigning everywhere, and nowhere to a greater
extent than in Arthur's room, or rather the rooms which he had
appropriated to himself, and into which he had had all his numerous
boxes and trunks brought, so that he could open them at his leisure.
There were more coming by express, he said, boxes which came through the
custom-house, for he had brought many valuable things, such as pictures,
and statuary, and rugs and inlaid tables and chinas, with which to adorn
his home.

The house, which was very large, had a wing on either side, while the
main building was divided by a wide hall, with three rooms on each side,
the middle one being a little smaller than the other two, with each of
which it communicated by a door. And it was into this middle room on the
second floor Arthur had been put, and which he found quite too small for
his use. So he ordered both the doors to be opened and took possession
of the suite, pacing them several times, and then measuring their
length, and breadth, and height, and the distance between the windows.
Then he inspected the wing on that side of the house, and, going into
the yard, looked the building over from all points, occasionally
marking a few lines on the paper he held in his hand. Before noon every
room in the house, except the one where Dolly lay