"Yes, or quarterly--according to the way the stock is drawn." "But isn't there some that is non-assessable? I've surely heard that expression." "In other States, but in California--well, possibly there might be." "I'm sure there must be. This of my father's must have been." She came quite close to him in her earnestness, and looked at him with an expression of uneasiness on her face. "It must have been that kind," she insisted; "probably you never heard of this mine." "Probably I never did," he answered grimly. They walked on for a few moments in silence. There was a visible drop in her spirits. Stealing a side glance at her, he could see that she was looking down, evidently in troubled thought. Suddenly she raised her head and said: "Well, I don't really know anything about it. Only I do hope one thing, and that is that it will go on paying." "Don't bother about that," he said; "it will." "What makes you think it will?" He turned on her roughly and said: "Don't you think it will?" "I'd like to think so," she answered, abashed by his unusual manner; "but I've learned that it's foolish to hope. I try not to." He gave a short, disagreeable laugh and said: "Oh, not in this case. Hope as much as you like." "You're very cheering," she answered; "but I don't see how you can be so sure." "It seems to me you're very pessimistic--especially for a young woman who has just found a drawerful of paying stock." His manner in making this remark was so impregnated with angry bitterness that Viola, chilled and repelled, made no response. In silence they walked onward till a turn in the street brought them in sight of the house. At the gate she said rather timidly: "Would you like to come in?" He had been carrying the basket, and now found the depositing of it in a place of safety an excuse to enter; for even in his present state of morose ill humor he could not forego the pleasure of a few more moments of her society. In the cold, half-furnished house their footsteps echoed with a strangely solitary effect. She preceded him into the parlor, and moved about with the confident tread of the chatelaine, pulling up the blinds, putting the basket out of sight, and laying aside her hat and gloves. There were some thin flowered muslin curtains hanging over the bay-window, and she arranged the folds of these with deft, proprietary touches, and then stepped back and studied the effect. After watching her for a moment the visitor said in a tone of restored amiability: "Aren't those something new?" She looked at him with quick, grateful recognition of his change of mood. "Yes; do you like them? I changed my mind about a dozen times before I bought them. Even now I don't know whether I'm entirely satisfied." "Oh, you ought to be," he said, as he drew near and eyed the curtains with the air of a connoisseur; "I'm sure you couldn't have chosen anything prettier."