considerably agitated the world of the eighties. The walls were covered with deep red paper of a very complicated design of arabesques upon which was superimposed a second design in very elegant gold, even more complicated. Against this hung engravings of Dignity and Impudence, The Monarch of the Forest, and The Trial of Effie Deans. Pampas grass in vases ornamented with realistic pink porcelain roses, waved its dusty plumes above a bronze clock surmounted by a bronze chariot driver and horses which rushed headlong toward a collision with a porcelain rosebud. By the side of the clock stood a large conch shell bearing in gilt lettering the legend, "Souvenir of Los Angeles, Cal."
"Shall we play hearts?" asked May, with appropriate glances, "or shall we just talk? . . . There's no moon and the piazza is all wet."
Ellen said nothing; she continued to regard Mr. Murdock with a curious, speculative air.
"Let's play hearts," said the anemic Jimmy, fidgeting and climbing over the sofa. "I kin play, Mr. Murdock," he added proudly.
Upon the pride of the Seton family, Ellen turned a withering glance, charged with homicidal meaning. It said, "What are you doing here? . . . If you were my brother you'd be in bed where you belong."
"Ellen wants to play hearts! . . . Ellen wants to play hearts!" sang out Jimmy, pulling awry the shade of the imitation bronze lamp.
Herman Biggs blushed and stammered that it made no difference to him. Mr. Murdock was gentle and polite. "Let's talk," he suggested mildly, "we might as well get acquainted." As the oldest by nearly ten years and the most sophisticated by virtue of his residence in New York, he took the lead.
"I think so too," replied Ellen and a curious flash of understanding passed between them, a glance which implied a mutual superiority founded upon something deep in Ellen's nature and
