a woman of
thirty, of masculine character, should require a chaperon in a brother
of equal age; but Peter knew the singular blending of childlike
ignorance with this Amazonian quality. He had made his arrangements
for an absence from Atherly of three or four years, and they departed
together. The young fair-haired lawyer came to the stage-coach office to
see them off. Peter could detect no sentiment in his sister's familiar
farewell of her unfortunate suitor. At New York, however, it was
arranged that "Jinny" should stay with some friends whom they had made
en route, and that, if she wished, she could come to Europe later, and
join him in London.

Thus relieved of one, Peter Atherly of Atherly started on his cherished
quest of his other and more remote relations.

CHAPTER II

Peter Atherly had been four months in England, but knew little of the
country until one summer afternoon when his carriage rolled along the
well-ordered road between Nonningsby Station and Ashley Grange.

In that four months he had consulted authorities, examined records,
visited the Heralds' College, written letters, and made a few friends. A
rich American, tracing his genealogical tree, was not a new thing--even
in that day--in London; but there was something original and simple in
his methods, and so much that was grave, reserved, and un-American in
his personality, that it awakened interest. A recognition that he was a
foreigner, but a puzzled doubt, however, of his exact nationality, which
he found everywhere, at first pained him, but he became reconciled to
it at about the same time that his English acquaintances abandoned their
own reserve and caution before the greater reticence of this melancholy
American, and actually became the questioners! In this way his quest
became known only as a disclosure of his own courtesy, and offers
of assistance were pressed eagerly upon him. That was why Sir Edward
Atherly found himself gravely puzzled, as he sat with his family
solicitor one morning in the library of Ashley Grange.

"Humph!" said Sir Edward. "And you say he has absolutely no other
purpose in making these inquiries?"

"Positively none," returned the solicitor. "He is even willing to sign a
renunciation of any claim which might arise out of this information. It
is rather a singular case, but he seems to be a rich man and quite able
to indulge his harmless caprices."

"And you are quite sure he is Philip's son?"

"Quite, from th