one arm, while with the
other he supported Lois. The dragging march began again, Dosia,
stumbling sometimes, trying to keep alongside of him, so that when he
turned his head anxiously to look for her she would be there, to meet
his eyes with hers, bravely scorning fatigue.

The trees had disappeared now from the side of the road; long, swelling,
wild fields lay on the slopes of the hillside, broken only by solitary
clumps of bushes--fields deserted of life, broad resting-places for the
moonlight, which illumined the farthest edge of the scene, although the
moon itself was hidden by the crest of a hill. And as they went on,
slowly perforce, he questioned Lois gently; and she, with simple words,
gradually laid the facts bare.

"Oh, why didn't Alexander tell me all this?" he asked pitifully, and she
answered:

"He said it was no use; he said you had no money."

"No; but I can sometimes get it for other people! I could have gone to
Rondell Brothers and got it."

"Rondell Brothers? I thought they were difficult to approach."

"That depends. I was with Rondell's boy in Cuba when he had the fever,
and he's always said--but that's neither here nor there. Apart from
that, they've had their eye on your husband lately. You can't hide the
quality of a man like him, Mrs. Alexander; it shows in a hundred ways
that he doesn't think of. They have had dealings with him, though he
doesn't know it--it's been through agents. Mr. Warren, one of their best
men, has, it seems, taken a fancy to him. I shouldn't wonder if they'd
take over the typometer as it stands, and work Alexander in with it. If
Rondell Brothers really take up any one!"--Girard did not need to
finish.

Even Lois and Dosia had heard of Rondell Brothers, the great firm that
was known from one end of the country to the other--a commercial house
whose standing was as firm, as unquestioned, as the Bank of England, and
almost as conservative. Apart from this, their reputation was unique. It
was more than a commercial house: it was an institution, in which for
three generations the firm known as Rondell Brothers had carried on
their business to high advantage--on the principles of personal honor
and honesty and fair dealing.

No boy or man of good character, intelligence, and industry was ever
connected with Rondell's without its making for his advancement; to get
a position there was to be assured of his future. Their young men stayed
with them, and rose steadily higher