them up, since:—

'My days were sunless and my nights were moonless,

Parched the pleasant April herbage and the lark's heart's outbreak tuneless,

If you loved me not!'

"I tell you, Lester," and there was a little break in our junior's voice, "I was overwhelmed. You know, love—passion—the real thing the poets write about—has grown mighty rare in this world. We're too commercial for it, I suppose; too much given to calculating chances. But here I was, face to face with it. Well, I was unequal to the situation—I didn't know what to say, but he helped me.

"'The date hasn't been set, yet,' he said, 'but it will be some time in June; and the reason I'm telling you all this is that I'm going to ask a favour of you. It's to be a church wedding and I want you to be best man. I hope you won't refuse.'

"I was glad of the chance to be of service and told him so," concluded Mr. Royce, glancing again at his watch and rising hastily. "The wedding's to be at noon to-day. You see I'm cutting it rather fine. I'd intended to go down yesterday afternoon, but that Barnaby petition upset my plans. I'll be back to-night or in the morning at the latest. In the meantime, if anything imperative turns up, a telegram to the Sheridan House at Elizabeth will catch me."

"Very well," I replied and made a note of the address. "But don't worry about the work here. I'll get along all right."

"Of course you will," he agreed, and an instant later, the door closed behind him.

But more than once in the course of the morning, I was inclined to think that I had spoken too confidently. Mr. Graham, our senior partner, had broken down about a month before, under a stress of work which had been unusual, even for our office, and had been ordered away for a long vacation; one or two members of the office force had resigned to accept other positions, and the task of filling their places was one which required thought and care; so for the time being, we were extremely short-handed.

That morning, perversely enough, it seemed to me that the work piled up even more rapidly than usual, and it was not until the mellow chimes of Trinity, marking the noon hour, floated through the open window, that I succeeded in clearing away the most pressing portion of the morning's business, and leaned back in my chair with a sigh of 

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