IN WHICH LIZZIE DESCENDS FROM A GREAT HEIGHT

"Lizzie was on hand at the hour appointed. We sat down here all by ourselves.

"\'Lizzie,\' I says, \'why in the world did you go to Europe for a husband? It\'s a slight to Pointview—a discouragement of home industry.\'

"\'There was nobody here that seemed to want me,\' she says, blushin\' very sweet.

"She had dropped her princess manner an\' seemed to be ready for straight talk.

"\'If that\'s so, Lizzie, it\'s your fault,\' I says.

"\'I don\'t understand you,\' says she.

"\'Why, my dear child, it\'s this way,\' I says. \'Your mother an\' father have meant well, but they\'ve been foolish. They\'ve educated you for a millionairess, an\' all that\'s lackin\' is the millions. You overawed the boys here in Pointview. They thought that you felt above \'em, whether you did or not; an\' the boys on Fifth Avenue were glad to play with you, but they didn\'t care to marry you. I say it kindly, Lizzie, an\' I\'m a friend o\' yer father\'s, an\' you can afford to let me say what I mean. Those young fellows wanted the millions as well as the millionairess. One of our boys fell in love with ye an\' tried to keep up, but your pace was too hot for him. His father got in trouble, an\' the boy had to drop out. Every well-born girl in the village entered the race with ye. An era of extravagance set in that threatened the solvency, the honor, o\' this sober old community. Their fathers had to borrow money to keep agoin\'. They worked overtime, they importuned their creditors, they wallowed in low finance while their daughters revelled in the higher walks o\' life an\' sang in different languages. Even your father—I tell you in confidence, for I suppose he wouldn\'t have the courage to do it—is in financial difficulties. Now, Lizzie, I want to be kind to you, for I believe you\'re a good girl at heart, but you ought to know that all this is what your accomplishments have accomplished.\'

"She rose an\' walked across the room, with trembling lips. She had seized her parachute an\' jumped from her balloon and was slowly approachin\' the earth. I kept her comin\', \'These clothes an\' jewels that you wear, Lizzie—these silks an\' laces, these sunbursts an\' solitaires—don\'t seem to harmonize with your father\'s desire to borrow money. Pardon me, but I can\'t make \'em look honest. They are not paid for—or if they are they are paid for with other men\'s money. They seem to accuse you. They\'d accuse me if I didn\'t speak out plain to ye.\'

"All of a sudden Lizzie dropped into a chair an\' began to cry. She had lit safely on the ground.

[Illustration: Lizzie dropped into a chair an\' began to cry.]

"It made me feel like a murderer, but it had to be. Poor girl! I wanted to pick her up like a baby an\' kiss her. It wasn\'t that I loved Lizzie less but Rome more. She wasn\'t to blame. Every spoilt woman stands for a fool-man. Most o\' them need—not a master—but a frank counsellor. I locked the door. She grew calm an\' leaned on my table, her face covered with her hands. My clock shouted the seconds in the silence. Not a word was said for two or three minutes.

"\'I have been brutal,\' I says, by-an\'-by. \'Forgive me.\'

"\'Mr. Potter,\' she says, \'you\'ve done me a great kindness. I\'ll never forget it. What shall I do?\'

"\'Well, for one thing,\' says I, \'go back to your old simplicity an\' live within your means.\'

"\'I\'ll do it,\' she says; \'but—I—I supposed my father was rich.
Oh, I wish we could have had this talk before!\'

"\'Did you know that Dan Pettigrew was in love with you?\' I put it straight from the shoulder. \'He wouldn\'t dare tell ye, but you ought to know it. You are regarded as a kind of a queen here, an\' it\'s customary for queens to be approached by ambassadors.\'

"Her face lighted up.

"\'In love with me?\' she whispered. \'Why, Mr. Potter, I never dreamed of such a thing. Are you sure? How do you know? I thought he felt above me.\'

"\'An\' he thought you felt above him,\' I says.

"\'How absurd! how unfortunate!\' she whispered. \'I couldn\'t marry him now if he asked me. This thing has gone too far. I wouldn\'t treat any man that way.\'

"\'You are engaged to Alexander, are you?\' I says.

"\'Well, there is a sort of understanding, and I think we are to be married if—if—\'

"She paused, and tears came to her eyes again.

"\'You are thinking o\' the money,\' says I.

"\'I am thinking o\' the money,\' says she. \'It has been promised to him. He will expect it.\'

"\'Do you think he is an honest man? Will he treat you well?\'

"\'I suppose so.\'

"\'Then let me talk with him. Perhaps he would take you without anything to boot.\'

"\'Please don\'t propose that,\' says she. \'I think he\'s getting the worst of it now. Mr. Potter, would you lend me the money? I ask it because I don\'t want the family to be disgraced or Mr. Rolanoff to be badly treated. He is to invest the money in my name in a very promising venture. He says he can double it within three months.\'

"It would have been easy for me to laugh, but I didn\'t. Lizzie\'s attitude in the whole matter pleased me. I saw that her heart was sound. I promised to have a talk with her father and see her again. I looked into his affairs carefully and put him on a new financial basis with a loan of fifteen thousand dollars.

"One day he came around to my office with Alexander an\' wanted me to draw up a contract between him an\' the young man. It was a rather crude proposition, an\' I laughed, an\' Aleck sat with a bored smile on his face.

"\'Oh, if he\'s good enough for your daughter,\' I said, \'his word ought to be good enough for you.\'

"\'That\'s all right,\' says Sam, \'but business is business. I want it down in black an\' white that the income from this money is to be paid to my daughter, and that neither o\' them shall make any further demand on me.\'

"Well, I drew that fool contract, an\', after it was signed, Sam delivered ten one-thousand-dollar bills to the young man, who was to become his son-in-law the following month with the assistance of a caterer and a florist and a string-band, all from New Haven.

"Within half an hour Dan Pettigrew came roarin\' up in front o\' my office in the big red automobile of his father\'s. In a minute he came in to see me. He out with his business soon as he lit in a chair.

"\'I\'ve learned that this man Rolanoff is a scoundrel,\' says he.

"\'A scoundrel!\' says I.

"\'Of purest ray serene,\' says he.

"I put a few questions, but he\'d nothing in the way o\' proof to otter—it was only the statement of a newspaper.

"\'Is that all you know against him?\' I asked.

"\'He won\'t fight,\' says Dan. \'I\'ve tried him—I\'ve begged him to fight.\'

"\'Well, I\'ve got better evidence than you have,\' I says. \'It came a few minutes before you did.\'

"I showed him a cablegram from a London barrister that said:

"\'Inquiry complete. The man is a pure adventurer, character nil.\'

"\'We must act immediately,\' says Dan.

"\'I have telephoned all over the village for Sam,\' I says. \'They say he\'s out in his car with Aleck an\' Lizzie. I asked them to send him here as soon as he returns.\'

"\'They\'re down on the Post Road I met \'em on my way here,\' says
Dan. \'We can overtake that car easy.\'

"Well, the wedding-day was approaching an\' Aleck had the money, an\' the thought occurred to me that he might give \'em the slip somewhere on the road an\' get away with it. I left word in the store that if Sam got back before I saw him he was to wait with Aleck in my office until I returned, an\' off we started like a baseball on its way from the box to the catcher.

"An officer on his motor-cycle overhauled us on the Post Road. He knew me.

"\'It\'s a case o\' sickness,\' I says, \'an\' we\'re after Sam Henshaw.\'

"\'He\'s gone down the road an\' hasn\'t come back yet,\' says the officer.

"I passed him a ten-dollar bill.

"\'Keep within sight of us,\' I says. \'We may need you any minute.\'

"He nodded and smiled, an\' away we went.

"\'I\'m wonderin\' how we\'re agoin\' to get the money,\' I says, havin\' told Dan about it.

"\'I\'ll take it away from him,\' says Dan.

"\'That wouldn\'t do,\' says I.

"\'Why not?\'

"\'Why not!\' says I. \'You wouldn\'t want to be arrested for highway robbery. Then, too, we must think o\' Lizzie. Poor girl! It\'s agoin\' to be hard on her, anyhow. I\'ll try a bluff. It\'s probable that he\'s worked this game before. If so, we can rob him without violence an\' let him go.\'

"Dan grew joyful as we sped along.

"\'Lizzie is mine,\' he says. \'She wouldn\'t marry him now.\'

"He told me how fond they h............