the changed domestic circumstances of her life) clapped her hands with pleasure, and became the joyous child of the happy old times once more.  Mrs. Linley, flattered in her maternal love and her maternal pride, never thought of recalling this extraordinary lawyer to the business that was waiting to be discussed.  But Mrs. Presty looked at the clock, and discovered that her grandchild ought to have been in bed half-an-hour ago.

“Time to say good-night,” the grandmother suggested.

The grandchild failed to see the subject of bed in the same light.  “Oh, not yet,” she pleaded; “I want to speak to Mr.—­” Having only heard the visitor’s name once, and not finding her memory in good working order after the conjuring, Kitty hesitated.  “Isn’t your name something like Saracen?” she asked.

“Very like!” cried the genial lawyer.  “Try my other name, my dear.  I’m Samuel as well as Sarrazin.”

“Ah, that’ll do,” said Kitty.  “Grandmamma, before I go to bed, I’ve something to ask Samuel.”

Grandmamma persisted in deferring the question until the next morning.  Samuel administered consolation before he said good-night.  “I’ll get up early,” he whispered, “and we’ll go on the pier before breakfast and fish.”

Kitty expressed her gratitude in her own outspoken way.  “Oh, dear, how nice it would be, Samuel, if you lived with us!” Mrs. Linley laughed for the first time, poor soul, since the catastrophe which had broken up her home.  Mrs. Presty set a proper example.  She moved her chair so that she faced the lawyer, and said:  “Now, Mr. Sarrazin!”

He acknowledged that he understood what this meant, by a very unprofessional choice of words.  “We are in a mess,” he began, “and the sooner we are out of it the better.”

“Only let me keep Kitty,” Mrs. Linley declared, “and I’ll do whatever you think right.”

“Stick to that, dear madam, when you have heard what I have to tell you—­and I shall not have taken my journey in vain.  In the first place, may I look at the letter which I had the honor of forwarding some days since?”

Mrs. Presty gave him Herbert Linley’s letter.  He read it with the closest attention, and tapped the breast-pocket of his coat when he had done.

“If I didn’t know what I have got here,” he remarked, “I should have said:  Another person dictated this letter, and the name of the person is Miss Westerfield.”

“Just my idea!” Mrs. Presty exclaimed.  “There can’t be a doubt of it.”

“Oh, but there is a very great doubt of it, ma’am; and you will say so too when you know what your severe son-in-law threatens to do.”  He turned to Mrs. Linley.  “After having seen that pretty little friend of mine who has just gone to bed (how much nicer it would be for all of us if we could go to bed too!), I think I know how you answered your husband’s letter.  But I ought perhaps to see how you have expressed yourself.  Have you got a copy?”