s. "There was a
girl in his office--a typewriting girl. All the money had been lost--"

"Whose money? The lawyer's or the office's?"

"Neither! Don't be silly. The girl's father's, of course."

"You never told us that she had a father!"

"Russell, if you interrupt every minute, I won't play. Of course he'd
lost it, or the girl wouldn't have been a typist. Any one would know
that! Ed--the lawyer did sea-sort of business--what do you call it?--
marine things--and the girl typed them. Years before a brother had
disappeared--"

"The lawyer's brother?"

"No! I'm sorry I began. You are so disagreeable, The _girl's_ uncle,
of course, and they often wanted to find him, because he was rich, and
might have helped them now they were poor. One day, when she was typing
out one of the depositions--"

"Ha!" The unusual word evoked unanimous comment. "`De-pos-itions--if
you please'! How legal we are becoming, to be sure!"

Vie flushed, and hurried on breathlessly--

"She came across the name of John H. Rose, and she wondered if the H.
meant Hesselwhaite, for that was her uncle's second name, and she looked
it up in the big document, and it _was_ him, and he was on the west
coast of South America, and they wrote to him, and he left them a lot of
money, and they lived happy ever after."

Polite murmurs of astonishment from the elders, unconcealed sniggerings
from the juniors, greeted the conclusion of this thrilling tale, and
then once more Darsie was called upon for her contribution, and this
time consented without demur.

"Very well! I've thought of a story. It's about a managing clerk who
was sent to Madrid on business for his firm. I didn't know him myself,
so don't ask questions! While he was in Madrid he went to the opera one
night, and sat in a box. Just opposite was another box, in which sat a
beauteous Spanish maid. He looked at her, and she looked at him. They
kept looking and looking. At last he thought that she smiled, and waved
her fan as if beckoning him to come and speak to her. So in the first
interval the eager youth made his way along the richly carpeted
corridors; but just as he reached the door of the box it opened, and a
man came out and put a letter into his hand. It was written in Spanish,
which the youth did not understand; but, being filled with a frenzy of
curiosity to know what the fair one had to say, he decided to run to his
hotel, and get the manager to translate it wit