"My Dear Uncle Alec,--I can't tell you how grateful I felt at receiving your letter and enclosure. Things were at a pretty bad pass for me and my poor Laline when your unexpected help arrived. I say unexpected, because I know quite well I didn't deserve it; but you have given me another chance, and I mean to profit by it. Unfortunately, I fear that it will be quite a fortnight before my wife is fit to travel. You see, owing to my ill-luck, she has had a rough time of it lately, and she is young--very little more than a child, in fact--and un-used to privations. Happily the doctor, whom I at once fetched in on receiving your kindly help, declares her constitution to be so good that with rest and nourishing food she will be herself again in a very short time. But he strongly recommends me to defer our journey for a fortnight or ten days, at the least. My wife's maiden name was Laline Garth; her mother was a country rector's daughter, and she has been most carefully trained in all womanly virtues, besides being an excellent little cook and housekeeper. She is wonderfully pretty, although very thin, poor child! She is not yet eighteen, and knows next to nothing of the world. In short, she is much, very much too good for me! I am not sending you the receipts you ask for, as at every moment I find some new thing we are in need of. Poor Laline and I haven't even decent clothing yet. You may well say that under the circumstances it was madness to marry. I admit that perhaps it was; but such madness might well be inspired by such a girl as Laline. However, you must see her yourself and judge whether I have over-praised her, and whether among my many faults there may not be counted unto me the saving virtue of knowing and loving a good women when I see one. "Always your affectionate nephew, "Wallace Armstrong." "The difficulty now is," observed Wallace, as he fastened the letter and addressed the envelope, after studying the contents with his mentor and friend, "to coach Miss Laline up in her part of the business. She seems somehow or other to possess a good deal of the awkward George Washington faculty. It will be a delicate matter to make her understand that you were an estimable clergyman, and that you are slumbering peaceful within the tomb." "The best plan," advised the Captain, thoughtfully sipping at his cognac, "is to warn her that your uncle disapproves of all men connected with the turf, and to beg her to think of me as dead. Of course it is not a particularly pleasant experience for an affectionate father----" "You are going to be paid for it!" Wallace interrupted, with his usual brutal directness. "It is not as though you were being asked to do anything for nothing!"