better go to your room; you'll get over this bit of tomfoolery in
time.'

'No, no, no, papa,' she moaned. For of all the miseries attaching
to miserable love, the worst is the misery of thinking that the
passion which is the cause of them all may cease.

'Elfride,' said her father with rough friendliness, 'I have an
excellent scheme on hand, which I cannot tell you of now. A
scheme to benefit you and me. It has been thrust upon me for some
little time--yes, thrust upon me--but I didn't dream of its value
till this afternoon, when the revelation came. I should be most
unwise to refuse to entertain it.'

'I don't like that word,' she returned wearily. 'You have lost so
much already by schemes. Is it those wretched mines again?'

'No; not a mining scheme.'

'Railways?'

'Nor railways. It is like those mysterious offers we see
advertised, by which any gentleman with no brains at all may make
so much a week without risk, trouble, or soiling his fingers.
However, I am intending to say nothing till it is settled, though
I will just say this much, that you soon may have other fish to
fry than to think of Stephen Smith. Remember, I wish, not to be
angry, but friendly, to the young man; for your sake I'll regard
him as a friend in a certain sense. But this is enough; in a few
days you will be quite my way of thinking. There, now, go to your