"A tenant of mine!" exclaimed the miser.
"It is even so. She occupies a second-story room in the tenement-house in——Street."
"And I have met her face to face?"
"I dare say you have. Your tenants are pretty sure to have that pleasure once a month. But doesn't it seem strange that Eleanor Gray, the beautiful daughter of your Havana employer, should after these twenty years turn up in Boston the tenant of her father's book-keeper?"
"Ha! ha!" chuckled the miser, hoarsely, "she isn't so much better off than if she had married old Peter."
"As to being better off," said Randall, "I presume she is better off, though she can't call a hundred dollars her own, than if she were installed mistress of your establishment. Faugh! Poorly as she is obliged to live, it is luxury, compared with your establishment."
He glanced about him with a look of disgust.
"If you don't like it," said Peter, querulously, "there is no use of your staying. It is past my bedtime."
"I shall leave you in a few minutes, Peter, but I want to give you something to think of first. Don't you see that your property is in danger of slipping from your hands?"