orium, three stores in one, and literally three
stores bought out one by one, and joined by connecting doors, though
they could never be united in their style of architecture, was rather
dark and chaotic inside, though a brave showing of plate glass across
the front advertised its prosperity. Luther Ward himself, in his shirt
sleeves, was looking over a tray of soiled, pale-coloured spats,
assisted by a tall, full-bodied girl with a sweet, sulky mouth, and a
towering mass of blue-black hair.

"Hello, Donovan, what's new?" he said, with only a shade more
condescension than Willard, and distinctly more friendliness.

"Nothing, sir," said Neil with conviction.

"You want to talk to Maggie, here. I won't intrude on a family quarrel,"
said Mr. Ward, and chuckling heartily at his own mild joke, as he
generally did, and few others did, disappeared into the furniture
department, the central one of the three stores, and his favourite. The
two cousins regarded each other across the tray of spats as if the
family quarrel were not a joke, but an unpleasant reality.

"You can't come here and take up my time," stated Miss Brady.

"Your time is pretty full--evenings, too. Do you know where Charlie was
last night?"

"I don't care."

"You ought. He's your second cousin, and goes by the same name as you,
if you're not in love with him. He was in Halloran's billiard hall."

"If he can't keep himself out of the gutter, I can't keep him out,"
stated Miss Brady logically.

"Well, don't push him in," her cousin advised, but the light of battle
had died out of his eyes, leaving them listless. "It's nothing to me. I
only came to bring you this."

He produced something from an inner pocket and tossed it on the counter,
something wrapped in a twist of newspaper, which parted as the girl bent
eagerly over it, something which shone and twinkled alluringly, as she
straightened it out with caressing fingers and held it up to the
light--a little necklace of rather ornate design and startling colours,
crimson stones and green and blue, the gayest of toys.

"Seems to be yours all right."

His cousin, who seemed to have forgotten his existence for one rapt
moment, remembered it with a start. "Did you show this to your mother?"
she asked sharply.

"Why?"

"Well, she don't like to have me spend my money on imitation jewellery."
Miss Brady delivered this very natural explanation haltingly.

"Do you?"

One of the sudden, vivid blushes wh