Mr. Burton, of whom little has been said, was not a very frequent visitor at his own house in the country. He liked the dust, and heat, and noise of Wall street better than the green fields, and the tall mountains, and cool river, which encircled his country home in Oakwood. So the house on Madison Square was always kept open for him, and two or three servants retained to keep it, and there he slept, and ate his solitary meals, and lived his solitary life, while Mrs. Burton and Georgie were away enjoying the good which money and position can buy. Occasionally, however, there came over him a desire for a change, and then he packed his valise, and took the cars or boat for Oakwood, usually surprising its inmates, who, never knowing when to look for him, were seldom expecting him. He had come up from New York thus suddenly the very morning after Georgie’s interview with Maude, and announced his intention of spending the entire day, and possibly remaining over until the morrow, provided there was anything worth staying for. “Oh, there is! There’s the croquet party at Leighton Place this afternoon, and you’ll go, and I’ll have you on my side, because you are capital at a long shot,” Maude Somerton said, hanging about her uncle’s chair, and evincing far more delight at seeing him than his wife had done. Mrs. Burton was a very good woman, and a very proper woman. She always kissed her husband when he came to Oakwood, and when he went away, and inquired how he was, and how the servants were getting on, and asked for three or five hundred dollars, as the case might be, and deferred to him in a highly respectful manner, pleasant to behold. But she never hurried out to meet him as Maude was wont to do, nor threw her arms around his neck, nor smoothed the thin hair from his tired brow, nor said how glad she was to have him there. Maude loved him as the uncle of her mother and the only father she had ever known, and almost the only heart-beats of affection the business man had felt in many a year, were called up by the touch of Maude’s lips to his and the clinging of her soft fingers about his own. So, though he hated croquet and could see no sense in knocking about a few wooden balls, he consented to join the party; and then remembering that he had not seen Georgie yet, he asked where she was. Georgie had a violent headache, and toast and tea had been carried to her room, and Mrs. Burton had been sitting with her when her husband came in, and reading her a letter received that morning from a man of high standing in Boston, who asked Mrs. Burton’s consent to address her daughter. It was an eligible offer enough, and but for one obstacle Georgie would have thought twice before rejecting it, for she knew better than any one else how fast her youth was fleeting. That obstacle was the genuine liking she had for Roy, and the hope that she might yet be fortunate enough to win him.