_Preference Shares_ are shares on which a dividend is bound to be paid so long as the net income is sufficient, even though there should not be a farthing left for the ordinary shareholders. A _Dividend Warrant_ is the document which entitles the holder of stock to receive payment of her dividend. Dividend warrants may be lodged with one’s banker in the same way as cheques. _Coupons_ is a term used for dividend or interest warrants attached to bonds running for a fixed number of years. They are usually printed at the bottom of the bond, there being one for every period at which interest becomes due. They must be cut off and presented at the right time to the appointed banker or agent. Many coupons require a stamp, which must be placed at the back, and have the name of the person to whom the money is due written across it. (_To be continued._) [Illustration] UNCLE JASPER. BY ALICE KING. CHAPTER I. “I shan’t, won’t, and can’t like Uncle Jasper; it’s quite impossible, I know, for me to do it; if he had any other name I might perhaps try; but Jasper, Jasper, just fancy liking anyone with such a name! He’s quite certain, with a name like that, to keep the windows tight shut in July, and insist on my wearing a fur cape in April, and eating oatmeal porridge for breakfast, and no butter and marmalade; and he’ll be always dressed in a hideous, flaring red dressing-gown, and he’s sure to have a wig, and he’ll never take a walk with me after sunset, because of some horrid old whim about catching cold. No, it’s not to be supposed that I can even tolerate Uncle Jasper; and as for going and living with him, and leaving our bright, jolly life here, it’s quite out of the question.” The speaker was myself. At that time I was a girl of fourteen, with brown eyes, and little feet that danced in unison; with a slight figure which, in its restless activity, brings to my mind now, as I look back, the ceaseless motion of the pampas grass when the breeze touches it ever so softly; with thick, frizzy, rebellious, dark hair, that utterly refused to accommodate itself to any known fashion of hairdressing whatsoever; with a broad, intelligent brow, which sometimes wrote the word “wilfulness” much too legibly upon itself in certain wrinkles and lines, if contradiction or any kind of supposed indignity stirred up my spirit within me, as was much too often the case; with a little red mouth, which was occasionally much too resolute a mouth for a young lady who had not travelled on very far in her teens.