“I want to see Mr. John Wilmot Liddell.”

“Then you see him!  Who are you?”

“Katherine Liddell, your niece.”

“My niece!” with inexpressible contempt and disbelief, “Well, niece or not, you may serve a turn.  Can you read?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Come, then—­come in.”  He turned and walked with some difficulty to the door of the front parlor.  Half bewildered, Katherine followed mechanically, and the small servant shut the front door, putting up the chain with a good deal of noise.

The room to which Katherine was so unceremoniously introduced was of good size, covered with a carpet of which no pattern and very little color were left.  The furniture was old-fashioned and solid; a dining-table covered with faded green baize was in the middle, and a writing-table with several drawers was placed near the fireplace, beside which stood a high-backed leather arm-chair, old, worn, dirty.  A wretched fire was dying out in the grate, almost choked by the red ashes of the very cheapest coal.

An odor of dust long undisturbed pervaded the atmosphere, and the dull damp weather without added to the extreme gloom.  Indeed the door of this apartment might well have borne Dante’s inscription over the entrance to a warmer place.

Mr. Liddell went with feeble rapidity across to where a large newspaper lay upon the floor, and resting one hand on the writing-table, stooped painfully to raise it.

“There! read—­read the price-list to me.  I am blind and helpless, for that jade has hid my glasses.  I know she has.  I cannot find them anywhere, and I must know how Turkish bonds are going.  Read to me.  I’ll hear what you have to say after.”  He thrust the paper into her hand, and sat down in the high-backed chair.

Poor Katherine felt almost dazed.  She took a seat at the other side of the table, and began to look for the mysterious list.  The geography of the mighty Times was unknown to her, and even in her mother’s humbler penny paper the City article was a portion she never glanced at.  While she turned the wide pages, painfully bewildered, the old man “glowered” at her.

“I don’t think you know what you are looking for,” he cried, impatiently.

“I do not indeed!  If you will show it to me——­”

He snatched it from her, and pointed out the part he wished to hear.  “Read from the beginning,” he said.

Katherine obeyed, her courage returning as she found herself thus strangely installed within the fortress she feared to attack.  She stumbled occasionally, and was sharply set upon her feet, in the matter of figures, by her eager hearer.  At last she came to Turkish six per cents.

“Eighty-seven to eighty-eight and a quarter.”

“Ha!” muttered the old man, “that’s an advance! good! nothing to be done there yet.  Now read the railway stocks.”