“Wait one moment,” she said, detaining him with one firm hand. “I've got something to say to you. Let Richards go for the present; all I ask of you about him is that you will do nothing until we can find out if he is so bad off. But, Mr. Forrest, I can do better for you about that mortgage. Mr. Lossing will take it for three years for a relative of his and pay me the money. I told him the story.” “And YOU will get the money all right?” “Just the same. I was only trying to help you a little by the other way, and I failed. Never mind.” “I can't tell you how you make me feel,” said Nelson. “Please let him bring you some melons to-morrow and make a stagger at it, though,” said Tim. “Can I?” Nelson's eyes shone. “If you want to,” said Miss Brown. She laughed; but in a moment she smiled. All the way home Nelson saw the same face of Failure between the old mare's white ears; but its grim lineaments were softened by a smile, a smile like Miss Brown's. TOMMY AND THOMAS IT was while Harry Lossing was at the High School that Mrs. Carriswood first saw Tommy Fitzmaurice. He was not much to see, a long lad of sixteen who had outgrown his jackets and was not yet grown to his ears. At this period Mrs. Fitzmaurice was his barber, and she, having been too rash with the shears in one place, had snipped off the rest of his curly black locks “to match;” until he showed a perfect convict's poll, giving his ears all the better chance, and bringing out the rather square contour of his jaws to advantage. He had the true Irish-Norman face; a skin of fine texture, fair and freckled, high cheekbones, straight nose, and wide blue eyes that looked to be drawn with ink, because of their sharply pencilled brows and long, thick, black lashes. But the feature that Mrs. Carriswood noticed was Tommy's mouth, a flexible and delicately cut mouth, of which the lips moved lightly in speaking and seldom were quite in repose. “The genuine Irish orator's mouth,” thought Mrs. Carriswood. Tommy, however, was not a finished orator, and Mrs. Carriswood herself deigned to help him with his graduating oration; Tommy delivering the aforesaid oration from memory, on the stage of the Grand Opera House, to a warm-hearted and perspiring audience of his towns-people, amid tremendous applause and not the slightest prod-dings of conscience. Really the speech deserved the applause; Mrs. Carriswood, who had heard half the eloquence of the world, spent three evenings on it; and she has a good memory.