Mr. Cory claimed to be the richest man in Pickaway, and very likely it was true. He owned hundreds of green and fertile acres, with cattle sleek and fat. He was ruling elder in the church, and his wife bought all her bonnets and flounces in the city, and they had built the finest house in the whole of Paint Valley. Indeed, nothing was done without his presence, and every one, from the minister to the sexton, received his advice, which he distributed far more liberally than he did his money. So it was that Franz had mentally guessed the object of his visit the instant he recognized him in the hall. “Fine weather, this.” The organist made no more audible reply to the remark than a half-uttered grunt, as he struck a match down the corner of the mantelpiece, and lighted the lamp. Mr. Cory sat uneasily on the hard, hair-cloth chair, dimly conscious of some obstruction in the usually smooth channel of his discourse. “Sad affair of the Widow Massey.” “Yes.” He looked about the room for a moment, as though expecting to discover the presence of some third person, then repeated,— “Sad affair! sad affair! We are all liable to sudden death, and she ought to have been saving up, in case of such an event. She left nothing to provide for the child at all. Nothing at all. The furniture will barely bring enough to pay for her funeral expenses.” Franz had sat down mechanically on the music-stool, and rested one hand on the keyboard of the piano. Just as the conversation had reached this point, he suddenly took his hand away, with a nervous movement that sounded three or four discordant bass-notes of the instrument as he did so, and Mr. Cory for the second time found himself laboring under an ill-defined sense of discomfort, something wholly unusual. But, seeing his host showed no symptoms of breaking the silence, after a slight cough, he went on,— “We have been talking this afternoon as to what is going to be done with the child. You’ve got her here, haven’t you?” “Yes.” “Well, one can’t do a great deal in this way, but you know it is such a sad case, and the child can’t do any work about a house, and my wife is so interested in her she thinks she’ll take the little girl—What did you say?” “Nothing.” “I beg your pardon, I thought you spoke. My wife is so interested in her she thinks she’ll take the little girl and send her for a year to the industrial school in the city, where she can learn to do fine sewing and embroidery. That will give her a chance to earn her living, and we can take up a collection in church to defray the expense.”