The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1909-09-20
herfting the business through her.

1 look on as a serious obstacle, for he was shrewd enough to know that with 1 his splendid start and opportunity for l working on her sympathies he had everything in his favor. The big brother attitude he knew was fatal. l She must not look on him in that light. | the guide, but not the big brother in any sense. This attitude he had care fully established while she was yet 8 child. He was always ready to go to | any lengths to please her. and at first, with the trustfulness of young girl, she took everything he did at its face l value. Her mother, too. worked per 1 haps unconsciously in Pinckney's s favor. She made Frances believe that everything Edward did was right and spoke of the time when he should man. age the Durant steel works as matter of course. Frances from her father had inherited strong mechanical bent, so there was that additional bond of sympathy between them. So matters had drifted along through her school days and Pinckney's college course until, when he came back from college to take up his life's work in the steel plant, the train was all laid and the odds were 100 to in favor of the schemer coming off victorious, mar rying the daughter of his benefactor and settling down as the right hand man of the steel magnate and the ul timate owner of the great plant.
 Frances was barely fourteen when he entered the works, and he at once &, ,aIv4 I1,% N& I,se plans and aspirations for the good of her fathers business. The eagerness and enthusiasm of the young man quite won the heart of the steel mag nate.
 Edward is wonder" he was ac- customed to say. Never saw such a hard worker. I thought I was hus-, tier, but that boy will sooner or later be showing me tricks.' '
 How little the millionaire realized the truth of what he was saying S. proudlyi Such energy and enthusiasm as Pinckney displayed must have brought his advancement in any busi- ness, and when his benefactor wa also his chief and he lived in the house success was necessarily rapid. In three years he had worked up from place in the draughting room to the post of manager. In each new position he made good, and Durant more than ever congratulated himself on his fore sight in taking up the orphan son of his friend.
 But Pinckney's love affair had not progressed so rapidly. Frances was glad of his success, but somehow she had ceased to be so interested in the man as she had been when girl. By the time she was seventeen all the glamour had worn off. Instead of talk ing him in a sentimental way she had begun in her own mind to look on him as sort of big brother. Pinckney did not know this. He felt that he was not coming ahead as fast as he had hoped. but he felt that there was time, especially as his hold on the rest of the family increased daily.
 Durant himself now looked forward to the time when his daughter and the protege whom he had come to regard as son should decide to marry. He trusted Pinckney more than ever. and he rubbed his hands with satisfaction at the thought that some day both Frances and the Durant works would be well taken care of after he was gone.
 Frances realized this and by the time she was nineteen had begun in vague sort of way to accept the situ- ation. Her friends leased her and then took the attachment for granted She knew that she did not love Ed ward, but she did trust him, and she had met no one whom she could care for.
 Edward had spoken to her mother and father. and both had agreed that whenever he chose to ask Frances he had their permission.
 Then during the summer of Fran ces' nineteenth year her father went abroad, leaving the entire manage ment of the big plant on Pinckney's hands. This had brought the man and the girl closer than ever together, and Pinckney was just debating how Soon he should make his attempt when he received notice from the govern ment that the Durant Steel works would have the task of casting a new cannon which Lieutenant Sommers of the navy had invented and that Lieutenant Sommers had been detailed to stay at the steel plant until the work had been done. There was an- other gun, the "Rhinestrom gun," in which Pinckney had more than a cas- ual interest, but business demanded that the government work be accept ed promptly.
 One week after the notice from Washington Lieutenant Sommers ap- peared, and then Pinckney's troubles really began.
 From the moment of their first meet ing Frances, Durant and Lieutenant Sommers had seemed mutually drawn to each other. To each the other was an entirely new type. Frances had never met man just like the young naval lieutenant. Up to that time her experience had been with men like Pinckney, who thought apparently only of business and getting ahead, orswith young men of the opposite extreme, who went in entirely for society and dissipation of all kinds.
 SOmmerS accordingly came as a new