well," he said contentedly; "pretty well, son. I'm glad to see you home again, my boy." There was a great tenderness in the usually rather cold gray eyes. The young man answered promptly, with delight in his manner of speech, and a sincerity that revealed the underlying merit of his nature. "And I'm glad to be home, Dad, to be"--there was again that clearing of the throat, but he finished bravely--"with you." The father avoided a threatening display of emotion by an abrupt change of subject to the trite. "Have a good time?" he inquired casually, while fumbling with the papers on the desk. Dick's face broke in a smile of reminiscent happiness. "The time of my young life!" He paused, and the smile broadened. There was a mighty enthusiasm in his voice as he continued: "I tell you, Dad, it's a fact that I did almost break the bank at Monte Carlo. I'd have done it sure, if only my money had held out." "It seems to me that I've heard something of the sort before," was Gilder's caustic comment. But his smile was still wholly sympathetic. He took a curious vicarious delight in the escapades of his son, probably because he himself had committed no follies in his callow days. "Why didn't you cable me?" he asked, puzzled at such restraint on the part of his son. Dick answered with simple sincerity. "Because it gave me a capital excuse for coming home." It was Sarah who afforded a diversion. She had known Dick while he was yet a child, had bought him candy, had felt toward him a maternal liking that increased rather than diminished as he grew to manhood. Now, her face lighted at sight of him, and she smiled a welcome. "I see you have found him," she said, with a ripple of laughter. Dick welcomed this interruption of the graver mood. "Sadie," he said, with a manner of the utmost seriousness, "you are looking finer than ever. And how thin you have grown!" The girl, eager with fond fancies toward the slender ideal, accepted the compliment literally. "Oh, Mr. Dick!" she exclaimed, rapturously. "How much do you think I have lost?" The whimsical heir of the house of Gilder surveyed his victim critically, then spoke with judicial solemnity. "About two ounces, Sadie." There came a look of deep hurt on Sadie's face at the flippant jest, which Dick himself was quick to note. He had not guessed she was thus acutely sensitive concerning her plumpness. Instantly, he was all contrition over his unwitting offense inflicted on her womanly vanity. "Oh, I'm sorry, Sadie," he exclaimed penitently. "Please don't be really angry with me. Of course, I didn't mean----"  "To twit on facts!" the secretary interrupted, bitterly. "Pooh!" Dick cried, craftily. "You aren't plump enough to be sensitive about it. Why, you're just right." There was something very boyish about his 

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