“No; he can be very entertaining,” sighed Mildred. “I have met him several times since we have been in New York. He was a classmate of papa’s at Yale and a gallant soldier in the war. Judge Matthews said he thought him one of the clearest and ablest thinkers in the country, and it seems that years ago he had achieved a European reputation.” “Yes,” I said, “I have seen his articles in the ‘Fortnightly’ and ‘Edinburgh’ reviews, and he spoke the other night as if he were well acquainted with Browning and Froude and half of the literary people of England.” “His wife wore fine sapphires, and I overheard her say that she was devoted to German opera,” added Mildred, musingly. “Well, what of it?” I asked, much mystified at this apparently irrelevant remark. “Why, only this,” answered Mildred, dryly; “this entertaining society man, this famous political economist, writes to me this morning piteously begging for an immediate loan of ten thousand dollars to keep the sheriff out of his house.” “Heavens! Mildred. Why, I supposed he had enough money to live on,” I cried, aghast. “He lives in one of those pretty two-thousand-a-year apartments up by the park, does he not? I have heard people say what a charming little home they had, and everything in such good taste. Pray how have they managed it?” “Oh, in the simplest way in the world—on other people’s money,” replied Mildred, with a shade of scorn in her tone. “The fact is, as all his friends know, he is as poor as a church-mouse. But he has always been accustomed to living well, and he has not the faintest idea of household economy in spite of his fine theories of political economy. He is generous and warm-hearted, and helped papa with a loan when he was in college trying to live on three hundred a year, and I cannot forget a kindness like that. Of course, it would be the easiest thing in the world for me to give him the ten thousand outright. A loan would be a gift for that matter, for he could never repay it, as his income is only three thousand a year, I fancy, and his expenses are at least one or two thousand more.” “Of course his wife must be the cause of all this,” I remarked. “Any woman who will spend borrowed money on sapphires”— “Oh, they were probably heirlooms; she came of a rich family,” interrupted Mildred.