“And I am very glad you did nothing so foolish,” said the young lady seriously, “or”--with a smile--“I should have been still more aggravating to you when we met. The bank was quite right. Nor have I any pathetic story like yours. Some years ago my little half-cousin whom you saw lost his mother and was put in my charge by his father, with a certain sum to my credit, to be expended for myself and the child. I lived with an uncle, with whom, for some family reasons, the child's father was not on good terms, and this money and the charge of the child were therefore intrusted entirely to me; perhaps, also, because Bobby and I were fond of each other and I was a friend of his mother. The father was a shipmaster, always away on long voyages, and has been home but once in the three years I have had charge of his son. I have not heard from him since. He is a good-hearted man, but of a restless, roving disposition, with no domestic tastes. Why he should suddenly cease to provide for my little cousin--if he has done so--or if his omission means only some temporary disaster to himself or his fortunes, I do not know. My anxiety was more for the poor boy's sake than for myself, for as long as I live I can provide for him.” She said this without the least display of emotion, and with the same mature air of also repressing any emotion on the part of Randolph. But for her size and girlish figure, but for the dripping tangles of her hair and her soft eyes, he would have believed he was talking to a hard, middle-aged matron. “Then you--he--has no friends here?” asked Randolph. “No. We are all from Callao, where Bobby was born. My uncle was a merchant there, who came here lately to establish an agency. We lived with him in Sutter Street--where you remember I was so hateful to you,” she interpolated, with a mischievous smile--“until his enterprise failed and he was obliged to return; but I stayed here with Bobby, that he might be educated in his father's own tongue. It was unfortunate, perhaps,” she said, with a little knitting of her pretty brows, “that the remittances ceased and uncle left about the same time; but, like you, I was lucky, and I managed to get a place in the Emporium.” “The Emporium!” repeated Randolph in surprise. It was a popular “magasin of fashion” in Montgomery Street. To connect this refined girl with its garish display and vulgar attendants seemed impossible.