Mrs. Trevalyn looked up at her beautiful daughter through her tears. “Go on, my dear,” she said. “I will listen patiently to anything you may have to say; but I think I can tell, by the way in which you have received the distressing news concerning your father’s failure, just what it is. Mr. Dinsmore has asked you to be his wife.” “He has, and I have refused him,” replied the daughter, laconically. “Refused him?” echoed Mrs. Trevalyn, looking at the beauty with dilated eyes. “Refused him--while every one is sure that he must be worth barrels of money?” “Every one is wrong in this instance, as usual. Mr. Dinsmore is only an author; his expectations are in the vapory shape of possible royalties on some future great book which he purposes to astonish the world with. His present income is what little he can earn from writing for magazines and papers; feeling as rich as a lord with twenty-five dollars in his pocket to-day, and to-morrow a beggar, or nearly so.” “Can it be possible?” gasped Mrs. Trevalyn, wondering if she had heard aright. “How did you find it out?” “From his own lips,” replied Queenie; adding impatiently: “But it is not of him I wish to speak; though right here and now, mamma, I frankly admit that I did admire John Dinsmore more than I care to own, and to find out that he was a poor man was a decided shock to me; but I am my mother’s daughter, and having a horror of poverty, I threw him over, stifling my regrets with an iron will.” “You are very brave, Queenie darling,” murmured Mrs. Trevalyn. “I had very little time to grieve over having to refuse him,” continued Queenie, “for another lover arose instantly upon the horizon of my future, as though to console me. In less than half an hour after I had refused John Dinsmore, I was the affianced bride to be of Mr. Raymond Challoner, heir prospective to all the Challoner millions. I like him in his way amazingly; I think he will make a far more fitting mate for a frivolous girl like me than grave John Dinsmore, had he been worth the same amount of shining gold.” “You have saved us, my dear!” cried Mrs. Trevalyn, dramatically. “You have saved the time-honored name of the Trevalyns. I can hold up my head again and breathe freely once more.” “Mr. Challoner pressed me hard for an immediate marriage, mamma,” the daughter went on complacently; “although I told him that it could not possibly be, and that I intended to have a wedding that should astonish all New York society by its elaborateness. Marry like a country maid eloping; ah, no, Queenie Trevalyn must have a magnificent wedding, as befits the station in which she moves. “After some little demurrer on his part, he yielded gracefully to my wishes. I will see him early to-morrow morning, mamma, and tell him that I have changed my mind as to the date of our marriage; it is a lady’s privilege, you know. I will tell him that I am willing that the ceremony shall take place at once, and I will tell him why.”