The experience of the past has been that bank officers have concealed all their operations from the proprietors, and when failures have occurred everybody has been astonished. As an additional safeguard to meet this secrecy an organization has just been perfected in New York which is a step farther in commercial agencies than has ever been attempted. From one of their printed circulars it is ascertained that they propose to keep in pay a corps of detectives and other agencies, "as a check upon defalcations and embezzlements by bank Presidents, and Cashiers and other officials." But it is not exactly clear who will watch the detectives. * * * * * ELIZABETH. A ROMANCE OF COLONIAL DAYS BY FRANCES C. SPARHAWK, Author of "A Lazy Man's Work." CHAPTER XI. UNWELCOME NEWS. June was doing its best to make the world content. Little clouds floated through the blue sky, like the light sighs of a mood that must find some expression, and the air for all its softness was invigorating, it was so full of life and purity. This day, like many another, needed only to bring as fair hopes to the lives of those who looked into it as it did to the nature it overbrooded to make the faces its light breezes fanned as bright as the skies were, with only shadows of expression to give the brightness new beauty. But no such light was on Elizabeth Royal's face as she sat at the open window of her room with a piece of delicate embroidery in her hands. Her future had not opened out into life; the winter had killed its buds of promise. After all, Stephen Archdale had not gone to England. His father and Governor Wentworth had insisted that it was much wiser to send an older and a better business man. "Do you want to make the best of your case?" the Colonel had asked incisively when Stephen hesitated. And the young man had yielded, though reluctantly. It would have been so much easier for him to be away and to be doing something. But at present he must think only of doing the wisest thing. Elizabeth had not seen him; he had written to her father once, and had promised to write again as soon as he had the slightest news. He had tried his best to be cheerful, and had sent her a message that endeavored to be hopeful; but she saw that courtesy struggled with despair. She knew that they need never meet; but if this thing were true--she could not believe it--but if it were true, then happiness was over. Life in a June day has such possibilities of happiness; and that morning her eyes grew so misty that she took a few wrong stitches in her work, and as footsteps drew near the room, perceived this and began to pick them out with nervous haste. She had not finished, however, when Mrs. Eveleigh came in. As Elizabeth had expected, her first remark was a comment.