The Adventures of Sally

as plainly the success she had hoped it would be. The first atmosphere of uncomfortable restraint, caused, she was only too well aware, by her brother Fillmore's

ext best thing to having money of one's own, is to dictate the spending of somebody else's, and Sally's guests were finding a good deal of satis

ected a brisk, incisive style of speech, as befitted a man in close touch with the great ones of Finance. "I'd sink a couple of hundred thousand in some good, safe bond-issue-we've just put one out which you would do well

th the big eyes who sat on Mr.

Sally, and put

undred thousand," said the mild young man, "I'd put every cent of it on Benny Whistler for the heavyweight cha

r voice, "lemme tell you what I'd

" said Elsa Doland, "I know what

hat?" ask

r last week, du

n the table, put her arm round her fri

really broke? If you

oland

ast cent to anyone. Of course I'm not broke. I've just come back fr

real estate; while the smaller, more sporting section, impressed by the mild young man's inside information, had already placed Sally's money on Benny Whistler, doling it out cautiously in small sums so as not to spoil the market. And so solid, it seemed, was Mr. Tuke's

" she said, "but I'm afraid they're wrong

too small to bother about. It was the sort of sum which they had been mentally setting aside for the heiress's car fare. The

gustus Bartlett, the first to rally fr

five thousand..."

hundred," observed a gloomy-looking man with spectac

brely on what

e heard France well spoken of-as soon as I can get my passport; and after I've loafed there for a few weeks, I'm coming back to loo

nd on Benny Whistler..."

uldn't have him if you gave him to me. If I want to l

magic name. "I was in Monte Carlo in the year '97, and if

; and slowly, with that easy grace which actors of the old school learned in the days when act

ble eyebrows a quelling glance at certain male members of the boarding-house's younger set who were showing a disposi

hat it would be optimism run mad to expect the old gentleman to abstain from speech on the night of Sally Nicholas' farewell dinner party; and partly because they had braced themselves to it, but principally because Miss Nicholas' hospitality had left them with a genial feeling of repletion, they settled themselves to listen with something resembling equanimity.

e friendliest of smiles, and a dimple that came and went in the curve of her rounded chin. Her eyes, which disappeared when she laughed, which was often, were a bright hazel; her hair a soft mass of brown. She had, moreover,

are others here far worthier of such a task-Brutuses compared with whom I,

youth, snub-nosed and spotty. Still, he could balance himself with one hand on an inverted g

indeed, he would have found it hard to answer, "to propose the health of our charming ho

unkindly. And Sally, seeing it, debated in her mind for an instant the advisability of throwing an orange at her brother. There was one lying ready to her hand, and his glistening shirt-front offered an admirable mark; but she restrained herself. After all, if a h

as a sort of Man of Destiny. To converse with him was for the ordinary human being like being received in audience by some more than stand-offish monarch. It had taken Sally over an hour to persuade him to leave his apartment on Riverside Drive and revisit the boarding-house for this special occasion; and, when he had come, he had entered wearing such faultless evening dress that he had made the rest of the party look like a gathering of tramp-cyclists. His

dest impression upon me have been the lavishness of American hospitality and the charm of the American girl. To-night we have been privileged to witness the American girl in the capacity of hostess, and I think I am right in saying, in asseverating, in committing myself to the statement that

tch. Sally continued to lean forward raptly. She knew how happy it made the old gentleman to deliver a fo

ering his cigar, "... But why," he demand

name," hazarded

ent of years standing, he considered that these transients from the vaudeville stage lowered the tone of the boarding-hous

, thank heaven, and are off to-morrow to infest some other city. That name," said Mr. Faucitt, soaring once more to a loftier plane, "is Sally. Our Sally. For three years our Sally has flitted about this establishment like-I choose the simile advisedly-like a ray of sunshine. For three years she has made life for us a brighter, sweeter thing. And now a sudden access of worldly wealth, happily synchronizing with her twenty-first birthday, is to remove her from our

at a little faster with anticipation. Fillmore was a fluent young man, once a power in his colle

should proceed from someone. She knew Mr. Faucitt so well. He looked on these occasions rather in the light of scenes from some play; and, sustaining his own part in them with such polished grace, was

loth and the thumb of the other in his pocket, glanced down the table with eyes so haughtily drooping that Sally

narily beautiful child, but after that he had gone all to pieces; and now, at the age of twenty-five, it would be idle to deny that he was something of a mess. For the three years preceding h

a good speech. She could see Mr. Faucitt leaning back in his chair, all co

ore s

n't want a speech... Very good of

at d

thing so menacing, so easy and practised, in Fillmore's attitude as he had stood there that the gloomier-minded had given him at least twenty minutes, and even the optimists had reckoned tha

him. He was feeling the sick shock which comes to those who tread on a non-existent last stair. And Sally, catching sight of his face, uttered a sharp wordless exclamation as if she had seen a

his nose and smoothed another wrinkle out of his waistcoat, "has not said quite-quite all I hoped he was going to say. I

Mr. Faucitt and

could not have claimed that Sally had been eloquent: neverthele