take some part of the business, Eugene, and keep
to it. Wilmarth is admirable in his department. He is getting out new
patterns, and now that he is really convinced of success he will no
doubt throw all his energies into it. Will you keep the books and look
after the correspondence? I have so much work of my own to do, and we
must economize all we can."

"Well," indolently, "don't expect too much of me."

"How would you like to travel, then?" asks Floyd. "Father, I find, did
a good deal himself."

"The travelling would be jolly, but I may as well be honest. I've no
knack of selling."

"Then begin at the books," returns the elder, decisively. "You ought to
be able to do a man's work somewhere."

"When I made such a blunder about the fortune, eh?" he says, with a
half-smile. "Were you really caught, Floyd?"

Floyd Grandon is sorely tempted to knock down this handsome, insolent
fellow, even if he is a brother. Oh, if he never had offered Violet to
him!

"What I wrote first," he says, "was at her father's desire. Then she
did for me a favor of such magnitude that my whole life will not be
long enough to repay, but honor led me to be fair to you, or I never
should have written a second time. Remember that she is my chosen wife,
and forget all the rest."

There is something in the tone that awes the young man, though long
afterward he recalls the fact that Floyd did not say he loved her. But
he is sobered a little and promises to make himself useful. Floyd has
no faith in him or his word. What a heavy burthen it all is!

Laura comes up again, and is all excitement. They are staying at a
hotel and Madame Lepelletier is with them, but she is going into her
house in a few days, and the Delancys hardly know whether to board or
to have a home of their own. There are her beautiful wedding gifts, and
there is the pleasure of giving dinners and teas! She discusses it with
her mother and Marcia. Eugene, whose advice is not asked, says, "Have a
house of your own by all means. Nothing is so independent as a king in
his castle."

Violet does not grow any nearer to her new relatives, excepting
Gertrude, who has a latent, flabby sense of justice that rouses her now
and then when the talk runs too high. There seems to be a grievance all
around. If Floyd married her for her fortune, then it is a most
shamefully mercenary piece of business; if he married her for a
mistress to his home, madame would have been so much more admirab