proud aristocracy-the one of the man that dies, the other of the family that goes on from age to age.

For the gigantic, fat, red-faced, red-whiskered, redheaded, jolly old Englishman, who wore a slouch-hat and pea-jacket and smoked a corn-cob pipe on board his yacht, and played ring-toss as merrily as a boy and whist as seriously as if the fate of empires hung on it, was one of the shrewdest statesmen, one of the richest and most blue-blooded noblemen, in Europe, with a pedigree crossing royal lines and stretching back into the dark ages. The Cliffords and Isabel Denman well knew how much of a personage he was, and that the big, handsome young viscount, who was so attentive to them all, especially to Isabel, as surely as he lived would one day be one of the greatest of English peers.

The days passed swiftly as they skirted the coast of Labrador. A rugged coast, indented with bays and inlets and fine, deep harbors. "Dark and yellow headlands towering over the waters, some grim and naked, others clear in the pale green of mosses and dwarf shrubbery. Rocky precipices, fantastic and picturesque in form, with stony vales winding alway among the blue hills of the interior." Islands, islands everywhere! Majestic icebergs, slowly drifting southward, gleaming under the sunlight and under the moonlight in all the colors of the rainbow, like huge prisms!

Stopping now and then at points of interest,-Battle Harbor, Ivuktoka, Point Rigoulette, Cape Webuck, Cape Chudleigh,-the party spent a month cruising to the northernmost confines of the great peninsula and back again. A month is a long time when young men and maidens are together on a pleasure-yacht. They played

games; they sang songs; they danced, Mrs. Clifford playing the piano and the old earl the fiddle. When the fog settled down and there was nothing to see, they improvised a little farce, and read the same books. Most delightful of all were the moonlight evenings, when they sat on deck wrapped in furs, and talked and sang and gazed on the grand, stern outlines of the desolate land and the ever-changing sea and the glory of the northern heavens.

Long before the voyage was ended Isabel knew, though no word had been spoken, that the heir to that great earldom loved her with his whole heart, and realized that she was beginning to like him better than any other young man she had ever met.

"Getting serious, is n't it?" observed the earl, one night as they were skirting the Maine coast on their

return.

"I'm glad of it, John," replied the countess; "she'll be a woman among thousands-only-"

"Only what?"

"Only I wish she was n't a brewer's daughter!" "So do I!" exclaimed the earl. "It may be class prejudice, but in spite of all Clifford says about the man, I can't help it."

Isabel read their hearts like an open book-the joy with which they would welcome her as a daughter, the distaste, which they supposed so carefully concealed, for her father's plebeian occupation. It stung her to the quick.

"He's a brewer," she said to herself, "but he 's John Denman. I've never seen a man to stand beside him -unless-unless it 's the Stand-by."

IV

"DON'T GO!"

T was senior vacation. Craigin was a De Forest, and in three weeks would be a B. A. and enter the great race of life. Examinations had closed that day, and he and Andrews were spending one of their last evenings together in the old room in South College.

Tom," he said, "you 're always talking about Apsleigh; what sort of a place is it to live in?" "A daisy. Why?"

"That's the why," replied Craigin, tossing his roommate a letter.

Tom read as follows:

MR. WILLIAM H. CRAIGIN.

DEAR SIR: Our present editor is about to leave, and one of your professors, an old friend and classmate of mine, says we shall be extremely fortunate if we can get you to take his place. There is one other Republican daily, the "Times," in our little city. It is the oldest and one of the ablest papers in the State. The "Tocsin" is a new paper, intended to voice more positive convictions of right and wrong than the "Times" appears to have, to lead rather than follow, and represent principles rather than spoils. Of course we have a good deal to contend with.

We can't pay you more than a hundred and fifty dollars a month until we get on a better financial basis. We could not think of offering you even that if it were not for the exceptionally good things said of you. Will you come and see us?

Very sincerely yours,

HENRY HARNETT,

President of Tocsin Publishing Co.

"That's just your kind of paper," said Andrews, as he finished reading the letter.

"Then you'd say go, would n't you?"

Tom smoked reflectively for many minutes before replying: "If you want my advice, Billy, don't go; don't have anything to do with it."

"Why not?"

"Because, as sure as you do, sooner or later you '11 lock horns with Uncle John."

"Well?"

"You won't say whatever the almighty dollar tells you; you'll say what you honestly think."

"Of course, if I go."

"And you can't edit that kind of a paper in that State without getting mixed up with the liquor question."

"Well?"

"Well, Uncle John, as you know, has a big brewery, a big wholesale and retail liquor house, the two leading hotels in Apsleigh, and controls the liquor business in all that part of the State. He's worth several millions; but it is n't money gives him his grip so much as the kind of man he is. He's one of the bravest, most generous, tenderest-hearted old fellows on earth. It is n't the money he gives so much as the

way he gives it, the good will that goes with it, the kind, beautiful, Christ-like things he 's doing all the timesee?"

"Yes."

"And he stands for just what cranks like you don't believe in, making the liquor business decent instead of trying to destroy it. They've had the stiffest kind of a prohibitory law up there for twenty years-on paper -and all the law that amounts to anything is Uncle John. If a man stands in with him and keeps a decent place he knows he 's all right, and he knows he 'll have to shut up pretty d-d quick if he sells to children and drunken men and has rows and knock-downs and drag-outs. For years and years the city governments that have had these things in charge have been Uncle John's shadow."

"Suppose we speak of him as his Royal Highness, John, King of Apsleigh," suggested Craigin. ""T is n't democratic, but it seems to hit the case as you put it.”

"That's what they call him, 'King of Apsleigh,' and I tell you, mighty few kings sit their thrones as he does his. People love him. Then, since the great railroad fight, they don't believe anybody can down him. The railroad folks thought they had him where they could squeeze him dry, and it ended with the railroad in his breeches pocket. Those 'Tocsin' people know how good-natured he is, that he 'll stand what most men with his power would n't and give way in little things, and of course they 'll want to press what they call reforms as far as he 'll let 'em ; but if it should come to a fight, a peasant would as soon think of standing up against the Czar of all the Russias. That's where