“Yes,” Archie returned, with firmly compressed lips; “Miss Gladstone _will_ listen to me when I go to her again. It is but right that she should hear my justification, whether she receives it favorably or otherwise.” “I have no fear of the result,” his guest returned, smiling; “for Miss Gladstone acknowledged to me that, in spite of her belief in your unworthiness, her affection for you remained the same.” A flush of joy shot over Lord Carrol’s face at this. “Did she tell you that?” he asked, eagerly. “Then I will doubt no more; and I have _you_ to thank for bestowing such happiness upon me as I never expected to know again.” They spent a half hour longer looking at other pictures, but sweet sounds coming up again from the drawing-room distracted Ralph’s attention and tempted him below. “Do I not hear the fair songstress of last night again?” he asked. “Yes, that is Vivien singing,” replied her brother. “I am very fond of music; shall we rejoin the company?” They went down, and, seeking the fair Vivien’s side, Ralph Meredith spent a most delightful evening, the memory of which clung to him for many a week afterward. The next morning he left London for a three-months’ tour through Scotland, Ireland, and the Continent. * * * * * Mrs. Richards sat in her handsome boudoir one morning a few weeks later, reading a newspaper. Something had evidently gone wrong with her, for her face was overcast, an angry red glowed in her cheeks, and her eyes gleamed with a sullen fire. The reason for this was the flat refusal, on the part of Mr. Richards, to accede to her immoderate demand for five hundred dollars, to purchase for herself and Josephine new dresses for the coming winter, and she had just returned to her room after the stormy interview. “I cannot let you have a dollar,” he had said, with a gravity almost amounting to sternness, “for I haven’t it to spare.” “Not a _dollar_, George!” she retorted, with a scornful laugh. “Who ever heard of anything so absurd?” “It is true, nevertheless,” he answered, gloomily. “Two months ago I expected that to-day would find us all beggars.” “What _do_ you mean?” his wife gasped. “Just what I say; and but for the appearance of a friendly hand just when and where I least expected it, I should have been obliged to fail, overwhelmed with debt and disgrace, and everything we have—house, furniture, horses, and carriages—would all have had to come under the hammer of the auctioneer.” “I cannot believe it,” Mrs. Richards said, growing pale. “That does not alter the fact, however,” her husband replied, laconically. “Why did you not tell me?” “I _did_ tell you. I kept writing to you when you were at Newport, Ellen, that I could not long endure such a drain upon my purse as you were subjecting it to, and that you must curtail your expenses; but you paid no heed to me, launching instead into greater extravagances.”