"You stupid goose," said Mrs. Craven, "I intended that from the moment I saw her. Cook's out buying her a cot this minute." * * * * * Here then was the way that Kate first came into the house at Princes' Park. She arrived without a surname, and Godfrey, in spite of hints and plain questions, kept back any further pedigree. The child arranged a name for herself. When she had been a year in England she went out to a small folks' party: "Let me see, what's your name?" asked the hostess, who had got tangled up among her many small guests. The child had answered "Kate O'Neill," as a matter of course. She had called Mrs. Craven, Aunt Jane, and her brother Uncle Godfrey from the first, and after that juvenile party she was introduced as "my niece, Kate O'Neill." As she grew, anything to do with West Africa and with business fascinated her, and curiously enough her principal instructor in these matters was Mrs. Craven. Godfrey, honest man, was not going to be bothered. His repartee when Kate asked him anything about the Coast was, "Go and invite some one to come in and let's make up a rubber of whist." When one day he died, and left Kate the O'Neill and Craven business, both she and her aunt supposed he had done it as an effort of humor. Mrs. Craven had the house and furniture at Princes' Park, and a comfortable annuity to keep it up on. Kate came into a business that had been thoroughly neglected, and allowed to run down till it was in a very shaky position, indeed, financially. "Sell it," said Mrs. Craven, "for what it will fetch." "I'd rather run it myself," said Kate. "Rubbish," said her aunt; "you're twenty, and the world's before you to enjoy. Besides, my dear, you're sure to marry. Sell the business." "If you want plain facts, aunt, I don't see why anyone should give sixpence for it, and if we tried to wind it up, it would mean bankruptcy. Some of the money's a very long way out." "Your poor Uncle Godfrey intended to leave you comfortably off, I know." "And I'm pleased to think he died believing he had done so. They had the quaintest way of keeping books down at Water Street. Cutting notches on a tally-stick was nothing to some of their dodges. They hadn't struck a proper balance sheet for years, and both Uncle Godfrey and Mr. Crewdson really and honestly imagined that the firm was flourishing." "You sell," said Mrs. Craven. "Not I, aunt. Uncle Godfrey left me the concern believing it to be a small fortune for me, and a fortune I'm going to make out of it, and not a small one, either." "I don't believe in business women," said Mrs. Craven severely. "I'd rather see a womanly woman." "My dear," said Kate, "you shall see the two combined in me presently. I'm going to make a ve-ry large and extensive fortune; but the moment you see anything unfeminine about me, I want you to tell me, and I'll sell out forthwith."