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                          MISS DIVIDENDS

                             A Novel

                  BY ARCHIBALD CLAVERING GUNTER

    AUTHOR OF "MR. BARNES OF NEW YORK," "MR. POTTER OF TEXAS," "THAT
    FRENCHMAN!" "MISS NOBODY OF NOWHERE," "SMALL BOYS IN BIG BOOTS," "A
    FLORIDA ENCHANTMENT," ETC., ETC.


    NEW YORK
    THE HOME PUBLISHING COMPANY
    3 EAST FOURTEENTH STREET
    1892

    COPYRIGHT, 1892,
    BY A. C. GUNTER.

    _All rights reserved._

    Press of J. J. Little & Co.
    Astor Place, New York




CONTENTS.


    BOOK I. THE GIRL FROM NEW YORK.

    I.--Mr. West                                                     7

    II.--Miss East                                                  17

    III.--Her Father's Friend                                       30

    IV.--Mr. Ferdie begins his Western Investigations               38

    V.--The Grand Island Eating-House                               54

    VI.--Mr. Ferdie Discovers a Vigilante                           66

    VII.--What Manner of Man is This?                               77


    BOOK II. A CURIOUS CLUB MAN.

    VIII.--The City of Saints                                      101

    IX.--The Ball in Salt Lake                                     115

    X.--"Papa!"                                                    135

    XI.--"For Business Purposes"                                   153

    XII.--A Daughter of the Church                                 166

    XIII.--The Love of a Bishop                                    179

    XIV.--A Rare Club Story                                        197


    BOOK III. OUT OF A STRANGE COUNTRY.

    XV.--The Snow-Bound Pullman                                    217

    XVI.--"To the Girl I Love!"                                    233

    XVII.--A Voice in the Night                                    240

    XVIII.--The Last of the Danites                                251

    XIX.--Orange Blossoms among the Snow                           264




MISS DIVIDENDS.




BOOK I.

THE GIRL FROM NEW YORK.




CHAPTER I.

MR. WEST.


"Five minutes behind your appointment," remarks Mr. Whitehouse Southmead
in kindly severity; then he laughs and continues: "You see, your oysters
are cold."

"As they should be, covered up with ice," returns Captain Harry Storey
Lawrence. A moment after, however, he adds more seriously, "I had a good
excuse."

"An excuse for keeping _this_ waiting?" And Whitehouse pours out
lovingly a glass of Chateau Yquem.

"Yes, and the best in the world, though probably not one that would be
considered good by a lawyer."

"Aha! a woman?" rejoins Mr. Southmead.

"The most beautiful I have ever seen!" cries Lawrence, the enthusiasm of
youth beaming in his handsome dark eyes.

"Pooh!" returns the other, "you have only been from the Far West for
three days."

"True," remarks Lawrence. "Three days ago I was incompetent, but am not
now. You see, I have been living in a mining camp in Southern Utah for
the last year, where all women are scarce and none beautiful. For my
first three days in New York, every woman I met on the streets seemed to
me a houri. Now, however, I am beginning to discriminate. My taste has
become normal, and I pronounce the young lady whose fan I picked up on
the stairs a few moments ago, just what I have called her. Wouldn't you,
if she had eyes----"

"Oh, leave the eyes and devote yourself to the oysters," interjects the
more practical Southmead. "You cannot have fallen in love with a girl
while picking up her fan; besides, I have business to talk to you about
this evening,--business upon which the success of your present
transaction may depend."

"You do not think the financial effort France is making to pay its war
indemnity to Germany will stop the sale of my mine?" says the young man
hurriedly, seating himself opposite his companion, and the two begin to
discuss the charming _petit souper_, such as one bachelor gave to
another in old Delmonico's on Fourteenth Street and Fifth Avenue before
canvas-back ducks had become quite as expensive as they now are, and
terrapin had become so scarce that mud-turtles frequently masquerade for
diamond-backs, even in our most expensive restaurants. For this
conversation and this supper took place in the autumn of 1871, before
fashionable New