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and swung round his revolving chair, bowing Emily towards it. She laughed at his grand air, but moved reluctantly toward the chair.

"Well, if that isn't good enough for your ladyship," he cried, "give your commands; they shall be obeyed." Emily laughed again, again, but did not make any demands; she moved about looking at the photographs and ornaments in the room. The door to the deck, which had been left open, closed gently as she stood at a table opposite.

"That's a pretty picture, isn't it?" the purser said at her elbow. It was a photograph of a vine-covered English cottage. "It's my little place in Lancashire," the man went on. "Look at this one here in the corner"; he guided her to it; his hand on her arm. The hand caused her a sudden annoyance; lifting the arm to release the hand, she glanced

at him and met a look that made her recoil, but a hot breath had brushed her face.

At that instant, a sharp rap on the door was followed by its immediate opening; Mrs. Skinner stood a moment looking in, then deliberately stepped over the high sill and walked up to the desk.

"Some way, I've got uneasy about my jewelry," she said; "half the voyage is half over, but I guess you'd better put it in the safe for me."

"All right, madam." The purser went forward with alacrity. "Pleasure to serve you. Have you got the jewelry now?"

Mrs. Skinner put her hand in her pocket and brought out a chamois bag; this she untied and turned it wrong side out over the table. A flash and sparkle of light seemed poured there; diamonds set in every conceivable way; rings, brooches, combs, buttons, pins, buckles, necklaces, a bewildering collection of gorgeous gems.

"Did you ever see anything handsomer?" cried their owner, darting

a keen look at the man, but never a glance at Emily.

"I never did that's a fact," was the prompt answer.

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"Well, just you take care of 'em for me.' She pushed them towards. him. "You'll put 'em in the safe here?"

"That's where everything goes, ma'am. There they'll be when you want 'em."

"That's all right, then. If you'll give me the receipt, I'm done."

"We don't give a receipt for such things," the purser spoke, insolently. "If you want the stuff locked up, well and good; if not, look after it yourself, madam." But the last word had no respect in it.

"Now see here," Mrs. Skinner's tone was business through and through. "You can't impose on me, sir; I know you'll take better care of the jewelry than you do of passengers, but I want my receipt in

case

some one should throw you overboard before we reach port." At the last word she glanced at Emily, and as the purser went to the safe, she gave that escaping young woman the benefit of a mirth-provoking wink.

It was in confusion of mind and with a desire to cry and to laugh at the same time that Emily, hurrying to the deck, ran almost into the arms of the two people she had been avoiding. Mutual apologies lengthened into a conversation, and in a few minutes the chasm that separates the stranger from the friendly acquaintance, however new, was

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out," said the gentleman. Emily's confusion was still too great to permit her to feel surprised at the use of her name, but by the time the yacht was sighted she had been set at ease by the easefulness of her companions. They had looked up her name, they confessed, on the passenger list, and then felt sure she must be the daughter of the man who had been the friend of the one and the old-time teacher of the other. Emily laughed at being told her father had given a course of lectures on political economy at the University before he expected to practice the economy necessary to a diplomat whose country pays its lesser representatives parsimoniously.

"Miss Wylie won encomiums by passing your father's examinations with honor, Miss Arnot. The examinations were stiff, too; I tried a similar set several years before and-failed. So I left politics and economy forever.”

"The Doctor was trying to introduce phonetic spelling, you see," explained Miss Wylie, "and his examination papers couldn't be made out."

"Orthography is always disdained by the great-and the foolish," laughed the doctor. "There was Deigo Delmar, with all his millions. would never buy a spelling book for his library. One day some trouble arose with the combination of his office safe; the thing couldn't be opened. Delmar said the word was "boots." When every one had tried to open it and failed, he was asked how he spelled "boots." 'Why, b-u-t-s, of course, you idiots!' he shouted."

As a merry laugh rang out from Emily, Mrs. Skinner, coming from the purser's office, stopped and looked at the group. Emily, quite conscious of what the woman had done for her, started towards her, but the owner of the diamonds deliberately passed the girl, gazing straight ahead, as if seeing nothing short of the bowsprit.

Frances Wylie and Doctor Heard left Emily no more lonely hours on the Slavic. Through them, she came to know again something of Western interests, and she learned of many other persons who had been connected with the life that seemed so long ago. Deigo Delmar she remembered hearing was a cousin of her mother's, but that relative she had never known. She knew that all his fortune had gone to a motherless little girl, who was being brought up in boarding schools. It was pleasant to learn of the growth of little Stratton Wylie, who, when he was ten years old, had been used to make splendid pictures on his copy-books and talk of all the wonderful things he meant to do for his big sweet-heart (Emily herself), when he should be a man.

The voyage began to be almost gay. Other passengers became friendly; acquaintances, so easily formed at sea, grew toward friendships to be cemented or dissolved as fate and the future should determine, and the days, with the miles, were left behind as the ship approached the haven which to some meant home, and to others a final severance with dearer lands. In spite of the Doctor's questions as to the safety of a ship that carried two women who were not always conscious of their clothes, nothing remarkable happened, and the voyage drew calmly to its close.

In a blaze of morning sunshine the Slavic steamed up to quarantine off the green shores from which nestling homes looked down. There across the Narrows were the chimneys and gardens of other homes; beyond and further up the bay, rose the mammoth warehouses and crowded docks from and to which hurried the numberless craft that cut pathways in the wide stretch of waters, and yonder above all the rest, glimmered the towers, the pinnacles, the golden dome of buildings where the great city, floating its smoke airily over its proud head

stood ready to welcome alike compatriot or alien.

Crowding the decks, the passengers, having signed the customs declarations and reassured their consciences for the more or less heinous prevarications they had practiced, made ready to wave to the devoted friends who were really interested enough in coming or returning voyagers to endure the tedious wait on the dock, to welcome them. Emily knew there would be no one to welcome her; she had been told to go to a hotel named by Uncle Billy, and wait there his communication. But she knew also the length of wait she might have and the inadequacy of her funds to meet hotel bills. From Frances Wylie she had learned of less extravagant places where she could lodge, and to one of these she determined to go.

Every one was too deeply concerned with his or her own affairs in the moment of landing to give heed to any one else; she could only silently look on and do as other people did, but the loneliness of a great crowd in which one is solitary became for the girl again sorely oppressive.

As she stood watching the frantic greetings of waving handkerchiefs, umbrellas and hats by friends distinguishing each other, a steward coming to Emily asked if she would be good enough to step to the purser's office. The message astonished her. She had never been in the office since the day Mrs. Skinner had interrupted, to her relief, an unpleasant encounter; she had not often, indeed, spoken to the purser since then. She went reluctantly now towards the office, round which were crowding people who had delayed getting money exchanged or reclaiming property. The purser was working fast at his desk, and glancing every moment or so, out of the door. When Emily stood there he got up as if it were she he had been looking for.

"Just come in and sit down a

minute, Miss Arnot," he said, between counting out greenbacks to a passenger. Emily sat down wondering. Several others were waiting to be served; several others came in, in haste; it looked as though she might have to remain some time, and she was impatient. She got up and went to the door, whereupon the purser seemed to intercept her egress.

"I'll get that article from the safe," he said, drawing her towards the place where the safe stood; then lowering his voice: "You saw me put it in here, didn't you?" Emily looked blank. "Mrs. Skinner's diamonds," he went on. "You were here when she brought me her diamonds to store. She's lost some of them since she took them out of here this morning. She's pretty wild. about it; says nobody on the ship but you and me knew she had 'em, and she's going to make a row. I wanted to tell you to get off the dock as soon as you can. Of course, she can't do much but make it unpleasant, but she'll do that pretty well if she gets started, and you don't want to be mixed up with that sort of a woman even in a case of investigation. Hurry off now, as soon as your luggage's been examined. I'll keep her aboard if I can till you're out of it. Just save you some bother, you know."

"Oh, thank you!" you!" exclaimed Emily, "you're kind to think of it, but I can't run away, you know. It's absurd about the diamonds, but I couldn't run away on that account. Why, if she can even think such a thing I want to stay until she is convinced."

"Oh, hang it all," cried the purser, and being called peremptorily to the desk, he left Emily standing by the safe, looking with indignant. dismay at the possibility before her. Again as on the previous occasion, Mrs. Skinner appeared in the doorway. She saw Emily at once and came towards her.

You've heard about my dia

monds, have you?" she asked abruptly, but in a low tone.

"Yes, I'm waiting to hear more," declared Emily.

"Well, I'm just looking for you to tell you to get ashore as quickly as possible. The purser will want to bring you up to testify that you saw the diamonds here; it'll only get your name mixed up with it for no good at all, and I want you to be out of it. Go, get off the dock as soon as you can. Of course I'm

going to have an investigation, but nobody needs you, child. Hurry off." She pushed Emily towards

the door.

The girl sped down the gangway; nobody she knew was in sight; a customs' officer came to her heap of luggage, and after the proper hesitations in spite of the signed declaration, he chalked the various pieces, and Emily was free to lose herself and her belongings in the metropolis of the New World.

(To be continued.)

The Strength of a Nation

By SADIE MCCANN

Though strength of arms, broad acres and great forts
Are well enough to view, it takes supports
Of stronger worth to stand the test of time.
Look to the past in every age and clime

Where flourished powers great. What's left to-day
To mark the splendor of their kingly sway?

One thing remains their character lives on
The most substantial part of battles won.
Unseen the mortal world has been evolved

From thoughts clear and distinct each race has
solved?

The influence that Socrates has shed

Is with us yet, though Grecian power is dead;
The Roman Empire long has passed away-
Her heroes breathe again in deeds to-day;
And Shakespeare, Goethe, Homer are a part
Of modern times to mould the human heart.

O great Republic, for whom countless died

That thou mightst be the home where freedom smiled
How will the coming ages read thy fate?
Will love of gold and foreign lands inflate
Thy pride, and will thy sons awake too late
To the real claims that make a Nation great?
Far be removed the hour of thy downfall;
Oh, may thy subjects rally to the call
To higher hopes and broader views. And each
Feel it a duty ignorance to teach,

To bravely toil as part of that grand whole
For weal or woe a Nation's lasting soul.

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