the club a reform club in a broader sense than had ever been contemplated.

He knew that he spoke none the worse because Isa

bel's eyes looked up into his from the crowded hall. In his dreams that night she stood beside him. He stretched forth his arms. An impassable gulf opened between them, widening, widening, ever widening. She vanished forever as two mighty hosts closed in horrible battle. He was leading one, her father the other.

Craigin's speech was an event. From that time he was the real head of the Reform Club. Harmony was restored, the rooms were made attractive, private meetings became informal and pleasant, and now and then an evening was given to simple entertainments, ending with good things to eat. Under the old order members were expected to abstain from whisky, under the new to live clean lives, be honest, pay their debts if they could. As the months went by Craigin shaped and molded the club more and more according to the outlines he had traced. He drew to himself two or three hundred people of the class it was designed to benefit, lifting them to purer lives and nobler aspirations. Among them were women who associated him with sober husbands, happy homes, credit at the grocer's, decent clothes for themselves and their children, who looked upon him as a type of the One who spent his life going about doing good. Among them were men, rough and uncultivated most of them, in whose hearts he kindled the divine flame of love, who would have followed him unquestioningly to death.

VIII

ON THE RIVER

HERE are horses and dogs and guns and boats and fishing-tackle at your service,” said Denman. "I keep 'em for my friends, and it's a great pleasure to me to have 'em used. There's always a spare knife and fork at our table; drop in as often as you can-breakfast, lunch, or dinner. We all play whist. We want you to come and go just as Tom would if he were living here."

Craigin hesitated, hardly knowing how to express himself without giving offense.

The brewer instantly divined his thought.

"I don't want to compromise you," he continued ; "and I promise, if you ever feel called upon to fight my business, I'll hold you as free to do so as if we were strangers. I like you, and I shall feel more hurt than I can express if you let any scruples of that kind stand between us as friends."

Craigin accepted these hospitalities in the spirit, though not to the extent, they were offered, and his intimacy with Denman himself was a source of great pleasure. Even before Isabel's return from Newport

he saw clearly why father and daughter were all the world to each other. Isabel inherited her father's brains and her mother's beauty. But Mrs. Denman was blessed with considerable tact and more indolence. A late breakfast in bed, an elaborate toilet, embroidery when she felt industrious, a light novel when she did not, lunch, a siesta, a bath, a more elaborate toilet, a drive, a call or two, dinner, and whist-this was her daily routine. As to the establishment, Denman kept a competent housekeeper. The wife and mother had no cares, and was as contented, as amiable, and as purely ornamental as a petted pussy. She was still extraordinarily beautiful, and had the faculty of saying little and appearing to be intelligent. Denman kept open house. United States senators, governors, congressmen, brewers, liquor-dealers, traders, horsemen, and plain Yankee farmers put their legs under his sumptuous but democratic mahogany. The conversation, from Gladstone's policy to the fine points of a horse, was almost always good of its kind, and Isabel, even when a little child, generally understood it far better than did the beautiful woman, whose tact, combined with her husband's pride, rarely permitted her to betray her ignorance.

Denman sent Isabel to a fashionable boarding-school at an early age, because she was practically motherless and his company was almost exclusively masculine. For the same reasons he was glad to have her spend her vacations with the Cliffords and get an opportunity to mingle with the best European society.

Denman's grounds, almost a park in extent, sloped back to the Apsleigh River.

One October afternoon Craigin came up from the landing.

"I've bought a shell," he said, as Isabel met him in the hall, "and have called to see if you 'll join me in trying it."

"With the greatest pleasure," she replied. "If you'll excuse me, I'll be ready in a few minutes."

As she went to her room she recalled a remark she had made weeks before and had not thought of since. It was: 66 I've always been accustomed to boats and rowing, but I never was in a shell, and should like nothing better than to try one."

"I'm sure he bought it for me," she said to herself. She soon returned, having exchanged her afternoon dress of golden-brown silk with velvet trimmings of a darker shade for a boating-suit of soft white flannel -full skirt, blouse waist, and cap-adorned with anchors embroidered in old-gold floss-silk.

"You're the only girl of my acquaintance I'd dare take out in a shell," observed Craigin, as they started out together.

"The only one you 'd dare drown?"

"The only one I would n't be afraid of drowning, for it 's as easily upset as a birch-bark canoe."

"So's my own boat-almost.”

"Yes; I did n't dare ask you till I had tried it. I knew if you could manage that, you could balance a shell."

"When did you try it?"

"Oh, I took that liberty a good while ago."

The answer satisfied Isabel that the shell was bought on her account.

"What a beauty!" she exclaimed as they reached the landing.

It was indeed a beauty-a first-class Spanish cedar Elliott, long, light as paper, slender as an arrow; made, like a greyhound, for speed alone.

"Beg pardon! but the crew must go aboard to receive the passenger," said Craigin, laying the boat alongside the little wharf, and taking the rower's seat. "There! now I'll hold it steady for you."

When she was seated and the motion had died away, he gently pushed off an oar's length from shore. His first strokes barely stirred the water, and meanwhile she watched closely every motion. The delicate craft, trimmed almost to a feather's weight, glided along without a tremor.

"Our cockswain himself could n't beat you!" he exclaimed at last, falling into a long, easy, regular sweep, that indicated perfect confidence. Straight away up the river they sped, mile after mile, the athlete at the oars, the girl at the rudder.

"Now let me row!" she cried as they neared the rapids and turned the bow homeward.

"I don't dare."

"I won't upset it, and if I do, I can swim like a duck."

"Ducks are n't handicapped that way," he replied, with an admiring glance at the costume, which strikingly set off her dark and splendid beauty, but was not at all adapted for swimming.

"You can swim, can't you?" she inquired. "Yes."

"Then there can't be any danger."