"YOU think there is no doubt," Helen was saying to her brother, holding her pen suspended, while beaming smiles played about her mouth. "I would not like to awaken expectations, if there is a doubt." Frank's face reflected his sister's cheerfulness, as he answered: "God willing, we shall leave here in a fortnight, to be in season for the steamer the first of the month. Thanks to the elixir from the Golden Spring, I feel as well as ever, and mean to take hold of work with a will. Do you know, I have made arrangements to carry a couple of hundred bottles of the water with me. I mean to have it analyzed, and,—" "Take care, Frank," she said, interrupting him, "I may have a word to say. You know Monsieur has given me a clean title, as he calls it, to the Golden Spring, with a strip of land leading from the chateau to the road." She laughed merrily as she held up the legal document to view, but presently added: "Keep quiet, now, while I finish my letter, and then we will walk to the office and post it." They were just in time to drop it into the bag. And then the rosy-faced girl gave them a letter which had come by the morning diligence. "Whose hand-writing is that?" asked Helen. "I do not know," was the grave reply. And then each waited quietly for the envelope to be unsealed, the same fear suggested to the minds of both. "It contains bad news for us." The name at the bottom of the sheet afforded no information; and so, with a sigh for which it would have been difficult to account, Frank proceeded to read the first page, his sister leaning against his arm, and looking over his shoulder. "MR. FRANCIS J. EDMOND: I regret to be the bearer of ill tidings, but necessity knows no law of kindness. I therefore proceed to inform you, that through the perfidy of your guardian, Monson P. Tracy, your entire fortune, with the exception of the estate in Maytown, has been sacrificed. I write this at the request of the son of my partner, who was Mr. Tracy's bondsman for the faithful execution of the will. "The circumstances, as far as I can learn them, are these (Mr. Tracy not being in a state to afford information on any subject): More than a year ago, the lead mines came into the market. Mr. Tracy purchased, from the agent, one hundred shares for you and your sister, paying ten thousand dollars for the same, on the condition that one hundred shares more be given him outright. For a short time the market for shares was very brisk, the agent pressing their claims to public favor with equal skill and shrewdness. Maps or charts of the locality were exhibited, with the railroad, and a pretty village in the foreground, but all this ended in moonshine.