“Miss Dalton may reject my counsels, but she will not despise the devotion in which they are proffered. A mere accident” here he glanced at the paper which she still held in her fingers “a mere accident has shown me that you have a difficulty; one for which neither your habits nor knowledge of life can suggest the solution.” He paused, and a very slight nod from Kate emboldened him to proceed. “Were it not so, Miss Dalton were the case one for which your own exquisite tact could suffice, I never would have ventured on the liberty. I, who have watched you with wondering admiration, directing and guiding your course amid shoals and reefs and quicksands, where the most skilful might have found shipwreck, it would have been hardihood indeed for me to have offered my pilotage. But here, if I err not greatly, here is a new and unknown sea, and here I may be of service to you.” “Is it so plain, then, what all this means?” said Kate, holding out the bill towards Jekyl. “Alas! Miss Dalton,” said he, with a faint smile, “these are no enigmas to us who mix in all the worries and cares of life.” “Then how do you read the riddle?” said she, almost laughing at the easy flippancy of his tone. “Mr. Dalton being an Irish gentleman of a kind disposition and facile temper, suffers his tenantry to run most grievously into arrear. They won't pay, and he won't make them; his own creditors having no sympathy with such proceedings, become pressing and importunate. Mr. Dalton grows angry, and they grow irritable; he makes his agent write to them, they 'instruct' their attorney to write to him. Mr. D. is puzzled, and were it not that But, may I go on?” “Of course; proceed,” said she, smiling. “You'll not be offended, though?” said he, “because, if I have not the privilege of being frank, I shall be worthless to you.” “There is no serious offence without intention.” “Very true; but I do not wish there should be even a trivial transgression.” “I 'm not afraid. Go on,” said she, nodding her head. “Where was I, then? Oh! I remember. I said that Mr. Dalton, seeing difficulties thickening and troubles gathering, suddenly bethinks him that he has a daughter, a young lady of such attractions that, in a society where wealth and splendor and rank hold highest place, her beauty has already established a dominion which nothing, save her gentleness, prevents being a despotism.” “Mr. Jekyl mistakes the part of a friend when he becomes flatterer.” “There is no flattery in a plain unadorned truth,” said he, hastily. “And were it all as you say,” rejoined she, speaking with a heightened color and a flashing eye, “how could such circumstances be linked with those you spoke of?” “Easily enough, if I did but dare to tell it,” was his reply. “It is too late for reserve; go on freely,” said she, with a faint sigh. Jekyl resumed,