hard for me, made sure I had enough money to run the song

"Of course what?" asked Augusta.

"I knew that he loved me," sobbed Gertrude.

"And you are here, because you intend to make her your wife in presence of all men?" asked Augusta.

"Then I suppose that it will be all right," said Lady Tringle. "It will be all right," said Augusta. "And now, mamma, I think that we may leave them alone together." But to this Lady Tringle would not give her assent. She had not had confided to her the depth of Mr Traffick's wisdom, and declared herself opposed to any absolute overt love-making until Sir Thomas should have given his positive consent.

"It is all the same thing, Benjamin, is it not?" said Augusta, assuming already the familiarity of a sister-in-law.

But Gertrude looked as though she did not think it to be exactly the same. Such deficiency as that, however, she had to endure; and she received from her sister after the Captain's departure full congratulations as to her lover's return. "To tell you the truth," said Augusta, "I didn't think that you would ever see him again. After what papa said to him in the City he might have got off and nobody could have said a word to him. Now he's fixed." Captain Batsby effected his escape as quickly as he could, and went home a melancholy man. He, too, was aware that he was fixed; and, as he thought of this, a dreadful idea fell upon him that the Honourable Mr Traffick had perhaps played him false.

In the meantime Mr Traffick was true to his word and went into the City. In the early days of his married life his journeys to Lombard Street were frequent. The management and investing of his wife's money had been to him a matter of much interest, and he had felt a gratification in discussing any money matter with the man who handled millions. In this way he had become intimate with the ways of the house, though latterly his presence there had not been encouraged. "I suppose I can go in to Sir Thomas," he said, laying his hand upon a leaf in the counter, which he had been accustomed to raise for the purpose of his own entrance. But here he was stopped. His name should be taken in, and Sir Thomas duly apprised. In the meantime he was relegated to a dingy little waiting room, which was odious to him, and there he was kept waiting for half an hour. This made him angry, and he called to one of the clerks. "Will you tell Sir Thomas that I must be down at the House almost immediately, and that I am particularly anxious to see him on business of importance?" For another ten minutes he was still kept, and then he was shown into his father-in-law's presence. "I am very sorry, Traffick," said Sir Thomas, "but I really can't turn two Directors of the Bank of England out of my room, even for you."

"I only thought I would just let you know that I am in a hurry." "So am I, for the matter of that. Have you gone to your father's house today, so that you would not be able to see me in Queen's Gate?"