RAY'S RECRUIT

M

PRELIMINARY.

To Mr. Darcy Hunter Gray.

Y DEAR BOY,-As foreshadowed in my last, the concern has gone to smash and your prospects with it. When its affairs are settled, the firm of Hunter, Bloom & Co. will have enough to pay its funeral expenses, and that's about all. What I have left is my wife's, who will, I trust, be able to support me until certain life insurance policies become due, out of which she can reimburse herself, through my dying, for the cost of my living. I'm too old to try again,—too sad to care much, except for you.

"Your father was my dear friend, your mother my beloved sister. When he died I promised him I would be When she died her last words

a father to you.

were a plea that

I should be good to her boy. I accepted both trusts, Darcy, and-betrayed both.

"They died poor: I was rich. They would

I

have had you learn to carve your own career, and I loved you so that from your bright, brave boyhood you were spoiled and indulged as my own son. I gave you the best I had. balked you in only one desire, that of going to West Point. Harvard, London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Rome, and the Riviera were your educators. I planned to make you a railway magnate when you hadn't learned the first principles of the business. I've accustomed you to every luxury,-to a life of careless ease, to be a dawdler and a dilettante-isn't that what you call it? I counted on leaving you rich, and I leave you ruined. The self-reproach-the misery which overcomes me as I write these words, no words can tell you.

"I know what you would write and say,you were always generous; but, Darcy, don't write, don't come,-just yet. Wait until you get the next news. Wait until

"However, let us get down to business. Of course you and Mrs. Hunter will not be apt to see much of each other. She will mourn me less than you; and you more than I deserve. The very little nest-egg your mother set aside for you is intact. With accrued interest it amounts to some eleven thousand seven hundred and twenty dollars. You have no debts to speak of, have you? I've paid all you ever told me about, twice, I think, and you were always frank and truthful. That little sum,

with what you have to your credit in the Chemical and over there with you, represents the sum total of your fortune. You never needed it before, and so I never happened to mention

it to you.

"But despite your defects in bringing up, for which I am responsible, you're not much worse off than if you'd gone into the army (I hope you've outlived that lunacy, as you did the other one for-you know), and can now make a strike for yourself. You have the best of health, the best of looks (for you strongly resemble your uncle as he was at your age), the best of education for any purpose that isn't absolutely useful, and there is nothing that I know of to prevent your marrying a fortune as I did, and living happy ever after-as I didn't.

"Don't underrate the extent of my collapse -Bloom got away with what Wall Street leftor of my love. Thank God I have no son of my own. Thank God I've only you to kneel to and say, Forgive the blind, miscalculating, but utterly humbled old fellow that—"

But here the eyes of the man seated there by the dancing waters in the glad April sunshine grew so blind with tears that he could read no

more.

Out on the blue, translucent waves the white swans were paddling to and fro, dipping for bread tossed by the lavish hands of laughing children and their white-capped bonnes. The

flashing oars of many a skiff drove through the sparkling waters, sending snowy little surges breaking from the sharp, white prows. Fairy yachts and swift paddle-wheel steamers clove the mirror surface farther from the shore, and tossed the creamy foam along their billowing wake. Half-way over to the Savoy shore, deep in the shadow of the mountains, two white-winged barques seemed wooing the faltering breeze, for not a leaf was stirring in the deep green foliage that shaded the path along the sea wall. Towering high aloft, dazzling in the sunshine, the snow-seamed, snow-capped crags blinded the eye with their radiance as they peered down into their own reflections in the sombre depths at their shadowy base. Away to the eastward, lovely little towns and villages lay at the foot of the vine-clad slopes of the northern shore, while here and there a venerable ruin-castle, convent, or fortress— stood sentinelled in bold relief on some projecting height, or nestled under the shoulder of some rocky cliff, close to the water's edge. Near at hand, in the public Place, the carrousels, thronged with children, old and young, were spinning madly to the reedy melodies of some donkey-driven organ. Waltz, galop, and military march rioted in loud rivalry, and a group of Italian singers, smiling indomitably, carolled “Funiculi Funicula'' in nimble opposition to a Tyrolean band quacking like noisy ducks in

the pavilion at the water's edge. The bell buttoned page of the Beau Rivage was still darting about, distributing letters just brought in by the grinning facteur, ever a-scent for tips, and, having still three or four undelivered missives, halted in front of the American.

'Pardon, m'sieu', but-ees Mees Langdon—"

"Up at the billiard-rooms, probably," was the brusque answer, as Mr. Gray turned hastily away to hide the suspicious moisture in his eyes.

"But no.

I'ave been there. I'ave letters

for her, and for M'sieu' Sm-eet."

The gloom in the tall American's face deepened perceptibly.

"Over yonder, possibly," he answered, with a sidewise nod of the head towards a little arbor "far from the madding crowd" at the eastward edge of the pretty grounds; then turned away, impatient of further inquiry. Some men were chatting eagerly at the fountain as he passed. One of them, English unmistakably, hailed him jovially.

"Time you were ready, Gray. You're going to Chillon, of course." And, with a true Briton's deep disdain of foreign names, he spoke it as it was spelled.

"No," was the answer; "I'm going to cool off."

"Been getting a red-hot letter, as you Yan