to the penalty of being compelled to contribute, if the deficiency in the assets requires it, an amount not exceeding the par value of the shares of stock held by them in addition to the amount already invested in such shares, to the fund necessary to pay depositors.  This of itself would seem sufficient to be careful and place a live Board of Directors in charge of a large fund, considering the manner the stockholders of the Pacific National Bank of Boston kicked and squirmed when this provision of the law was applied.

The experience of the past has been that bank officers have concealed all their operations from the proprietors, and when failures have occurred everybody has been astonished.  As an additional safeguard to meet this secrecy an organization has just been perfected in New York which is a step farther in commercial agencies than has ever been attempted.  From one of their printed circulars it is ascertained that they propose to keep in pay a corps of detectives and other agencies, “as a check upon defalcations and embezzlements by bank Presidents, and Cashiers and other officials.”  But it is not exactly clear who will watch the detectives.

* * * * *

ELIZABETH.

A ROMANCE OF COLONIAL DAYS

BY FRANCES C. SPARHAWK, Author of “A Lazy Man’s Work.”

CHAPTER XI.

UNWELCOME NEWS.

June was doing its best to make the world content.  Little clouds floated through the blue sky, like the light sighs of a mood that must find some expression, and the air for all its softness was invigorating, it was so full of life and purity.  This day, like many another, needed only to bring as fair hopes to the lives of those who looked into it as it did to the nature it overbrooded to make the faces its light breezes fanned as bright as the skies were, with only shadows of expression to give the brightness new beauty.  But no such light was on Elizabeth Royal’s face as she sat at the open window of her room with a piece of delicate embroidery in her hands.  Her future had not opened out into life; the winter had killed its buds of promise.

After all, Stephen Archdale had not gone to England.  His father and Governor Wentworth had insisted that it was much wiser to send an older and a better business man.  “Do you want to make the best of your case?” the Colonel had asked incisively when Stephen hesitated.  And the young man had yielded, though reluctantly.  It would have been so much easier for him to be away and to be doing something.  But at present he must think only of doing the wisest thing.