"On the day I reached my sixtieth year, Mr. Ames, I decided that my humdrum life must cease. The strictest conventions had guided me from earliest childhood. My experience of life had been limited to those things which women of education and means enjoy--or suffer, as you please to take it. I resolved that for the years that remained to me I should seek to enjoy myself after my own fashion. To sit in the inglenook and knit, with no human companionship but sick kittens, with dull monotony broken only by visits from dutiful clergymen in pursuit of alms for foreign missions, was not for me. Two years ago I chartered a yacht and cruised among the Lesser Antilles, enjoying many adventures. Later I crossed the Andes; and I have just returned from Switzerland, where I accomplished some of the most difficult ascents. I have a clipping bureau engaged to inform me of all rumors of hidden treasure and sunken ships, and I hope that of this something may come, as I retain a marine engineer and corps of divers and can leave at an hour's notice for any likely hunting-ground. This may strike you as the most whimsical self-indulgence. Tell me candidly whether my remarks so affect you." "If it were not that your benefactions of all kinds have given you noble eminence among American philanthropists, I might be less biased in favor of the sort of thing you describe; but your gifts to orphanages, colleges, hospitals"-- "Ah!" she interrupted; "enough of that. Philanthropy in these times is only selfish exploitation, the recreation of the conscience-stricken. But you see no reason why," she pursued eagerly, "if I wished to dig up the Caribbean Sea in search of Spanish doubloons, I should not do so? Answer me frankly, without the slightest fear." "I assure you, Miss Hollister, that such projects appeal to me strongly. I have often lamented that my own lot fell in these eventless times. As an architect I proved something of a failure; as a chimney-doctor I lead a useful life, but the very usefulness of it bores me. And besides, many people take me for a sweep."