When Tramlay bade good-by to his new partner a few moments after the partnership was verbally formed he wondered which to do first,—return to the club and announce his good fortune to the several other iron men who were members, or go home and relieve the mind of his wife. As he wondered, he carelessly remarked,—

“Which way are you going, Phil?”

The young man, who was already starting off at a rapid pace, returned, and said, in a low tone,—

“Can’t you imagine?”

The older man took his partner’s hand, and seemed to want to say something.

“What is it, Mr. Tramlay?” asked Phil, for the silence was somewhat embarrassing.

“My dear fellow,” said the merchant, “a man who has just given away his daughter is usually supposed to have done a great favor.”

“As you certainly have done,” Phil replied.

“Thank you; for I want to ask one in return. Fathers aren’t sole proprietors of their daughters, you know. Mrs. Tramlay—when you speak to her about the affair, as of course you will, be as—be all—do be your most considerate, courteous self, won’t you?”

“I beg you will trust me for that,” said Phil.

“I’m sure I can,—or could, if you understood mothers as well as some day you may.”

“I have a mother, you know,” suggested Phil.

“True, but she had no daughters, I believe? Mothers and daughters—well, they’re not exactly like mothers and sons. Mrs. Tramlay respects you highly, I know, but she may not have seemed as friendly to your suit as you could have liked. Try to forget that, won’t you?—and forgive it, if it has made you uncomfortable?”

“I would forgive a bitter enemy to-night, if I had one,” said the excited youth.

“That’s right; that’s right: a man has so few chances to feel that way that he ought to improve them all. You’ll even be patient, should it be necessary?”

“As patient as Job,” promised Phil.

“Thank you! God bless you!” said the merchant, wringing Phil’s hand and turning away. Phil again started. The merchant walked toward the club, stopped after taking a few steps, looked in the direction Phil had taken, drew his hat down over his eyes, hurried to his house, entered the basement door, sneaked up the back stairway as if he were a thief, and quietly entered his own room, which, to his great relief, was empty.

Meanwhile, Phil had reached the house and been admitted. He had not to ask for Lucia, for he heard through the open door of the parlor some piano-chords which he knew were touched only by her fingers. Lucia did not hear him enter, and as he stopped to look at her she seemed to be in a revery that was not cheerful. He had never seen her looking so-so plain, he would have said, had she been any one else. There was no color in her face, and her cheeks seemed thin and drawn. An involuntary motion startled her, and she turned, exclaiming,—

“How you frightened me!”

“I wish you might punish me in some way for it,” said Phil, approaching her.

“It was so late that I did not imagine any one would call,” the girl explained.

“I was quite busy in the earlier part of the evening,” said Phil,” and I needed to see your father.”

“Business is horrid,” said Lucia. “I should think men would attend to it by daylight. Well, I believe papa went to the club.”

“Yes; I found him.”

“And, as usual, he sent you home for some horrid papers of some kind?”

“No, not exactly,” said Phil. How uncomfortable it is to have a dream dispelled—even a day-dream! All along the way to the house he had imagined just how she would look; he could see the flush of her cheek through the half-mile of darkness that he had traversed, his path had seemed illumined by the light of her eyes, yet now she was pallid, and her eyes had none of their customary lustre, and her mental condition—it did not seem at all appropriate to the conversation which he had a hundred times imagined and upon which he had set his heart that night. Well, he would be patient: “Faint heart never won fair lady.”

“Aren’t you a little severe on your father for his devotion to business?” he ventured to ask. “Out in the country we have an old saying, ‘Make hay while the sun shines.’ The sun never shone brighter than now in the iron-business.”

“Yes, I know,” replied Lucia, wearily. “It’s always something for business’ sake. Yes, we have that same dreadful saying in New York.”

“But it’s all for the sake of women that men are so absorbed in business,” argued Phil. “What would your father care for business, if it weren’t for his wife and charming daughters and younger children? He never sees iron, I imagine, while he is talking about it, nor even thinks of the money, for its own sake. Greenbacks and gold and notes and bonds all transform themselves, in his eyes, I suppose, into dresses and cloaks and bonnets and opera-boxes and trips to Europe, and——”

“You silly fellow!” said Lucia, with the first smile upon which she had ventured that evening; “I wonder where you get such notions. If you don’t give them up you will some day find yourself writing poetry,—something about the transmutation of railroad-iron into gold. Think how ridiculous that would seem!”

“But when iron attempts ‘to gild refined gold,—to paint the lily,’” said Phil, “as it does in your father’s case, why, ’twould be worth dropping into poetry to tell of at least one instance where Shakespeare’s conclusion was wrong. You know the rest of the quotation?”

Yes, evidently Lucia knew it, for her cheek glowed prettily under the compliment, which, while somewhat awkward, reached its mark by the help of Phil’s eyes. As for Phil, his heart began to be itself again: whose heart wouldn’t, he asked himself, under the consciousness of having given one second of pleasure to that dear girl?

“You seem to be in a sermonizing mood to-night,” said Lucia. “I know my father is the best man alive, and I supposed you liked him,—a little; but I can’t imagine what should have impressed you so strongly with him to-night.”

Phil studied the toes of his boots, the tints of the patternless rug, the design of the frescoed ceiling. Lucia watched him with an amused face, and finally said, “Even you don’t seem to know.”

“I know,” said Phil, slowly, “and I’m trying to think how to express it properly.”

Poor fellow! how he did despise himself, that what he had hurried there to say would not come to his lips properly! Such a story had seemed easy enough when he had read, in books, of how other men told it,—so easy, indeed, that he had come to have very little patience with that portion of novels. Of course he could not tell it while Lucia was laughing,—laughing at him, too. Perhaps he could lead conversation back to the desired tone; but no; for just at that instant Margie flew into the room, exclaiming, before she fairly entered,—

“Oh, Lu, isn’t it awful? I just went across the room for something, and my dress caught the table-cover, and over went an inkstand on my very, veriest white—— Why, Phil, I didn’t know you were here.”

“I wish I knew what would take ink-stains from very, veriest white——”

“Oh, so do I. What shall I do, Lu? Do tell me at once.”

“Perhaps,” suggested Phil, with a gleam of hope for Margie and several for himself, “your laundress can tell.”

“The very thing,” said Margie. “What a blessing you are! I wish you were always here.” Then she flew out of the room, but not until she had flung a meaning look at her sister and another at Phil. Both blushed, and Phil felt uncomfortable, but as he stole a look at Lucia he mentally blessed Margie, for Lucia was no longer laughing, and she was looking unusually pretty; her eyes, slightly downcast, seemed a more heavenly blue than ever.

“The reason I have your father’s goodness on my mind to-night,” said Phil, breaking the silence to abate the awkwardness of the situation, “is because to-night he has made me his partner in business,—his own equal.”

“Oh, Phil!” exclaimed Lucia, her whole face suddenly aglow and her eyes looking full into his. “I’m so glad—so glad for you—for him, I mean; for both of you. What I meant to say was—— Oh, how did it happen?”

“Oh, I chanced to get an order which he was kind enough to think the greatest stroke of business that any firm has made this season. So he asked me my price, and while I was wondering what to say he made me the offer.”

“Just like his dear, noble heart,” said Lucia.

“Yes,” said Phil, rising, and pacing to and fro in front of the piano, and fixing his eyes on the floor; “and all the nobler it seemed on account of the sordid, grasping way in which I took it. I wasn’t satisfied with that, but wanted more. I hope he’ll never have cause to think unkindly of me for it.”

“More?” said Lucia, wonderingly, and somewhat soberly. “What more could you want than to be a prominent merchant?”

“As we say in the country, guess,” said Phil, approaching the piano-stool and opening his arms.

Lucia guessed.

What a deal he had to say to her, while still they stood there! He knew it was not polite to keep a lady standing, but while he was supporting her so strongly, though tenderly, it did not seem that Lucia would weary of the position; nor did she. And what a lot of questions each asked and answered!—questions and answers that would seem as silly to any one else as they were interesting to those they concerned. Perhaps there came occasional moments when neither was speaking, but during these Phil could look down at the golden tangle just about at the level of his lips, and think how much more precious it was than all the gold that railroad-iron could be changed into by the alchemy of endeavor.

How long they might have stood there, if undisturbed, they never knew, for they were so heedless of all that might be going on about them that they did not note the entrance of Margie, who was returning from an interview with the laundress in the basement. That young lady was quick to discern the situation, and was about to depart quietly and with celerity; but, acting upon the promptings of her second thoughts, she returned, threw her arms around the couple, and exclaimed,—

“Oh, isn’t this splendid!”

There was a rapid separation of the trio, and then Margie attempted to whirl Lucia about the room in a waltz, that being the younger sister’s most natural method of expressing joy. But, somehow, Lucia did not feel like waltzing; on the contrary, she kissed her sister several times, hid her own face a great deal, and finally made a great effort to be calm as she pointed at Phil and said, with a sprightly toss of her head,—

“Papa’s partner. Tramlay and Hayn is to be the sign over the store hereafter.”

Margie’s eyes opened in amazement for a moment; then it was Phil’s turn to be whirled about the room,—an operation in which he displayed the astounding awkwardness peculiar to young men who cannot dance. Suddenly she paused, and said,—

“Mamma must know at once. The idea of there being some one within reach to tell it to, and I wasting all this time!”

“Margie!” exclaimed Lucia, as the girl’s dress rustled up the stair, “Margie, come back a moment,—do.” Then there was some rapid whispering, and Margie re-ascended, saying, in very resigned tones,—

“Very well.”

“I suspect,” said Phil, when Lucia returned, “that you’ve suggested that I am the proper person to break the news.”

“Isn’t it better?” asked Lucia, timidly.

“Infinitely.”

“Mamma is not always easy to speak to, on some subjects,” Lucia suggested.

“No task could be hard to me to-night,” responded Phil.

Yet in a moment or two, when Mrs. Tramlay was heard approaching, the young man’s looks belied his brave words. Lucia pitied him; she pressed closely to his side, as if to assist him, but when her mother’s footstep was heard in the hall the girl’s courage deserted her, and she fled, and left the young man to whatever fate might be impending.

“Margie tells me you have some great news,” said Mrs. Tramlay to Phil.

“Bless Margie!” said Phil to himself; then, instead of at once addressing himself to the duty before him, he gave Mrs. Tramlay as full a report of the rise, progress, and result of the Lake and Gulfside operation as if she, instead of her husband, were the head of the iron-house.

“And you have told Mr. Tramlay, I think you said,” the lady remarked.

“Yes; I looked him out at the club, for the purpose.”

“He was pleased, of course?”

“Greatly, I am happy to say.”

Mrs. Tramlay looked thoughtful. Phil was puzzled by her manner. Did she know or care so little about business as not to estimate at its true value the importance of the Lake and Gulfside order? She was so calm about it that Phil himself began to think less than before of his success. He even wondered whether it would be worth while to tell her of the worldly fortune the operation had brought to him. Probably she was one of the large class of women, of whom he had heard, who have no heads for business.

“Did Mr. Tramlay say anything in reply?” asked the lady, after a moment or two of thought.

“Why, yes,” said Phil, with some hesitation, for he wondered if, after all, it might not be better that Tramlay himself should tell the story of his clerk’s promotion. Mrs. Tramlay eyed him keenly; then she asked,—

“Did he say anything concerning your future,—and ours also, as related to it?”

“Yes,” said Phil, now satisfied that Tramlay’s offer had been premeditated, and not made in the excitement of the moment; “and,” he continued, with his best smile and bow, “I am happy to assure you that I was simply delighted to agree with him.”

“My dear son!” exclaimed Mrs. Tramlay.

Phil’s astonishment reached almost the stage of petrifaction, but before he could betray it his prospective mother-in-law had depressed his head so that she might kiss him on both cheeks.

Such a prayer of thanksgiving as Phil’s heart sent up as he returned Mrs. Tramlay’s salutation! Meanwhile, two young women who had been flagrantly transgressing one of the most imperative rules of their breeding flew at each other from the two doors that opened from the hall into the parlor: at last Margie had found some one who was both able and willing to be waltzed madly about. They were even reckless enough to float into the parlor, right before their mother’s eyes. Then Mrs. Tramlay, conscious for the first time that her eyes were wet, flew to the seclusion of her own room, where, to her great surprise, she fell into the arms of her husband.