stock to-morrow morning, and pay the difference."

"Can I do that?"

"Rather. Why not?

"What would the difference be?"

Harrison took an evening paper from his pocket. "We deal in rails chiefly, and I don't profess to keep in touch with the mining market. We'll find the quotation here. By Jove!" He whistled between his teeth.

"Well!" said Frank, and felt his wife's little warm palm fall upon his hand under the table. "The difference is in your favour."

"In my favour?"

"Yes, listen to this. The mining markets, both the South African and the Australian, opened dull, but grew more animated as the day proceeded, prices closing at the best. Out crops upon the Rand mark a general advance of one-sixteenth to one-eighth. The chief feature in the Australian section was a sharp advance of five-eighths in El Dorados, upon a telegram that the workings had been pumped dry.' Crosse, I congratulate you."

"I can really sell them for more than I gave?" "I should think so. You have two hundred of them, and a profit of ten shillings on each." "Maude, we'll have the whisky and the

soda. Harrison, you must have a drink. Why, that's a hundred pounds."

"More than a hundred."

"Without my paying anything?"

"Not a penny."

"When does the Exchange open to-morrow?"

"The rattle goes at eleven."

"Well, be there at eleven, Harrison. Sell them at once."

66

"You won't hold on and watch the market?" No, no-I won't have an easy moment until they are sold."

66

me.

"All right, my boy. You can rely upon You will get a cheque for your balance Good evening! I am so glad that it has all ended well."

on Tuesday or Wednesday.

"And the joke of it is, Maude," said her

husband, after they had talked

adventure from the beginning.

over the whole

"The joke of

it is that we have still to find an investment for our original fifty pounds. I am inclined to put it into Consols after all."

66

Well," said Maude, "perhaps it would be the patriotic thing to do."

Two days later the poor old Broadwood with the squeaky treble and the wheezy bass was

banished for ever from The Lindens, and there arrived in its place a ninety-five-guinea cottage grand, all dark walnut and gilding, with notes in it so deep and rich and resonant that Maude could sit before it by the hour and find music enough in simply touching one here and one there, and listening to the soft, sweet, reverberant tones which came swelling from its depths. Her El Dorado piano, she called it, and tried to explain to lady visitors how her husband had been so clever at business that he had earned it in a single day. As she was never very clear in her own mind how the thing had occurred, she never succeeded in explaining it to any one else, but a vague and solemn impression became gradually diffused abroad that young Mr. Frank Crosse was a very remarkable man, and that he had done something exceedingly clever in the matter of an Australian mine.

A THUNDERCLOUD

BLUE skies and shining sun, but far down on the horizon one dark cloud gathers and drifts slowly upwards unobserved. Frank Crosse was aware of its shadow when coming down to breakfast he saw an envelope with a well-remembered handwriting beside his plate. How he had loved that writing once, how his heart had warmed and quickened at the sight of it, how eagerly he had read it-and now a viper coiled upon the white table-cloth would hardly have given him a greater shock. Contradictory, incalculable, whimsical life! A year ago how scornfully he would have laughed, what contemptuous unbelief would have filled his soul, if he had been told that any letter of hers could have struck him cold with the vague apprehension of coming misfortune. He tore off the envelope and threw it into the fire. But before he could glance at the letter there was the quick patter of his wife's feet upon the stair, and she burst, full of girlish health and high spirits, into the little room. She wore a pink crepon dressing-gown, with cream guipure

lace at the neck and wrists. Pink ribbon outlined her trim waist. The morning sun shone upon her, and she seemed to him to be the daintiest, sweetest thing upon earth. He had thrust his letter into his pocket as she entered.

"You will excuse the dressing-gown, Frank." "I just love you in it. No, you mustn't pass. Now you can go."

"I was so afraid that you would breakfast without me that I had no time to dress. I shall have the whole day to finish in when you are gone. There now-Jemima has forgotten to warm the plates again! And your coffee is cold. I wish you had not waited."

"Better cold coffee with Maude's society." "I always thought men gave up complimenting their wives after they married them. I am so glad you don't. I think on the whole that women's ideas of men are unfair and severe. The reason is that the women who have met unpleasant men run about and make a noise, but the women who are happy just keep quiet and enjoy themselves. For example, I have not time to write a book explaining to every one how nice Frank Crosse is; but if he were nasty my life would be empty, and so of course I should write my book."

"I feel such a fraud when you talk like that."