Now, on his return home that evening, the miller was very much embarrassed by a searching inquiry from his beautiful daughter. It seems that when she had tried to telephone to one of her friends that afternoon she had been informed by Central that the service had been discontinued for non-payment of the bill for December, 1906. "Have we come to such a pass as that, father?" she demanded, her lovely voice quivering with emotion. "It looks like it," said the miller, with an uneasy laugh. "I have been kept so busy paying for your daily supply of fresh sables that I haven't had a moment for the gas bills or for your conversational accounts. With you to look after, my dear, I find that even talk is not cheap." The beautiful girl wiped the tears from her eyes with her point-lace handkerchief. "But," she cried, "what are we going to do? I must have eleven hundred and seventy dollars and fifty-five cents to-morrow morning, father, or I shall be ruined." The miller's heart sank within him and his face grew ashen. "Eleven hundred and seventy dollars and fuf-fifty--fuf--five cents?" he stammered. "In Heaven's name what for, Gasmerilda--hairpins?" "No, father," she trembled. "I have issued three or four pounds of deferred bridge certificates, and they fall due to-morrow. You certainly do not wish me to lose my social position--about the only thing I have left?" The unhappy man gazed long and anxiously at the pale face before him, and then his heart softened, as it always had done. "All right, my child," he sighed, as he tossed the exact amount to her across the table. Then his face grew stern. "Gasmerilda," he said, "your extravagance having brought us to this, I may as well inform you now as at any other time that it is up to you to get us out of trouble, and I have to-day been forced to enter into negotiations with the Pactolean Trust Company by which you are to be capitalized. Hereafter, my child, you are to become a dividend-paying investment instead of twin sister to a sinking fund." "What can you mean, father?" cried the girl, her face blanching with fear. The miller thereupon recounted to her in full detail the incidents of the morning, and revealed to her astounded mind the preposterous claims he had made on her behalf. "But father," she protested, "I have no such gift." "You will excuse me for refusing to discuss the matter further with you, Gasmerilda," he replied, coldly. "If it so happens that you have no such gift you must devise some method of getting it. I have given my word, and as a dutiful daughter you must make good." Turning to the butler, the miller asked: "James, has a bale of straw arrived here to-day from Colonel Midas?" "Yes, sir," said the butler. "It is down-stairs in the cellar, sir." "Good!" said the miller. "You will have it carried up to Miss Miller's dressing-room at once."