"Is he as—as religious as you are?"
"Not perhaps in the same way. He does not see quite as I do, but he is a good man and loves everything good." Some recollection made the speaker smile. "I try his soul at times by not doing what he calls minding my own business. For instance, once I saw a young fellow at an elevated station in New York, dazed by drink. I was in haste and on an important errand, but I couldn't take my train and leave him there. So I went and sat down beside him and asked him where he was going. He said, to the Brooklyn ferry, but he was thick and helpless. I called a little colored boy carrying a large milliner's box, and I asked him if his errand needed to be done immediately. He was pretty doubtful, but he finally said no. So I told him I would check his box and leave a dollar with it for him when he returned, if he would take this young man straight to the Brooklyn ferry and see that he did not go in anywhere on the way. He said he would do so, and I gave him his check and car fare and some nickels for telephoning, and asked him to call me up that evening. I wrote my telephone number and left it with the box. He promised, and my train came along and I had to leave them. About six o'clock that afternoon, the telephone rang. It was my messenger. He said that when he got the young man downstairs to go to the train for the ferry, his charge became violently sick. After that, he came to himself and gave a different direction to the boy. The address of an office building. He was pale and shaky. So the boy stayed with him. They went up in an elevator and into an office where the young man said that he had brought the money. They sent for some one from another office, and to this person the young man gave a roll of a thousand dollars.
"Of course, I was quite excited, and happy over this news, and I thanked my messenger and said: 'See what God has helped us to do to-day. That young man might have been robbed, and would have been suspected of theft by his employer and lost his character and his position.' My husband was sitting near by, reading the paper, and he looked up and said: 'Who on earth are you talking to?' I just answered: 'A little darky boy!' and went on, while my husband stared. When I told him the whole story, he laughed and shook his head. 'Hopeless,' he said, 'hopeless.' He is quite conservative, and he would like me to stay in the beaten track."
"That was fine," said Diana. "Mr. Lowell will be in sympathy with this case, I hope, and undertake it with his whole heart. I am going to give you a check to send him as a retainer. Then he will know that this is a serious business matter."
The girl sat down at her desk and wrote the check and Mrs. Lowell took it thankfully. She went to her room and wrote her letter. In due time she received a reply.
Dear One,
I see you have again ceased minding your own business and I am really very proud of you in spite of your obstinacy. I thought in the wilds of Casco Bay, you might get away from responsibilities for awhile, but I might have known that, unless I set you adrift on an iceberg, you would find some lame, or halt, or blind, to succor. Even then, I think the iceberg would melt at your presence, and in short order you would be down among the mermaids explaining to them that it was error to get out on the rocks to do their hair and sing to sailors.
Your story is very interesting, and while I believe that Boston is as full of Lorings as it is of beans, Miss Wilbur has made it possible to ring every Loring doorbell and ask down which steps ran the eloping daughter. Rest assured, as her lawyer I shall do my best in this affair. Owing to Mr. Wilbur's prominence in the public prints, his connections are pretty well known, and I thought I associated Herbert Loring, the railroad president, with him. I suppose Miss Wilbur would have told you if there were anything in that.
The remainder of the letter dealt with different subjects, and, when Mrs. Lowell had finished it, she hastened to her friend, and put her question.
"I will send my father a telegram at once," responded the girl.
That form of speech was not strictly accurate, as it was rather an elaborate operation to send a telegram from the island. However, it was finally accomplished. This was the message to her father:
Have you any friends named Loring? Have we any relatives or connections by marriage of that name?
Diana