ing. What am I to
understand? What has this gentleman to do with my appointment with Dr.
Washington?"

"My dear cousin, I am so happy this morning that I wonder I do not
talk in conundrums, or rondeaux, or terza rima. It is a mere chance, I
assure you. Perhaps I may break out in rhymes presently. This evening
we will have fireworks in the square, roast a whole ox, invite the
neighbors, and dance about a maypole. You shall lead off the dance,
Clara."

"Pray go on, Arnold. All this is very inexplicable."

"This gentleman, however, is a very old friend of yours, Clara. Do you
not recognize Mr. Frank Farrar, who used to stay at the Hall in the
old days?

"I remember Mr. Farrar very well." Clara gave him her hand. "But I
should not have known him. Why have we never met in society during all
these years, Mr. Farrar?"

"I suppose because I have been out of society, Miss Holland," said the
scholar. "When a man marries, and has a large family, and a small
income, and grows old, and has to see the young fellows shoving him
out at every point, he doesn't care much about society. I hope you are
well and happy."

"I am very well, and I ought to be happy, because I have recovered
Claude's lost heiress, my cousin, Iris Deseret, and she is the best
and most delightful of girls, with the warmest heart and the sweetest
instincts of a lady by descent and birth."

She looked severely at Arnold, who said nothing, but smiled
incredulously.

Mr. Farrar looked from Iris to Miss Holland, bewildered.

"And why do you come to see me to-day, Mr. Farrar--and with Arnold?"

"Because I have undertaken to answer one question presently, which Mr.
Arbuthnot is to ask me. That is why I am here. Not but what it gives
me the greatest pleasure to see you again, Miss Holland, after so many
years."

"Our poor Claude died in America, you know, Mr. Farrar."

"So I have recently heard."

"And left one daughter."

"That also I have learned." He looked at Iris.

"She is with me, here in this house, and has been with me for a week.
You may understand, Mr. Farrar, the happiness I feel in having with me
Claude's only daughter."

Mr. Farrar looked from her to Arnold with increasing amazement. But he
said nothing.

"I have appointed this morning, at Arnold's request," Clara went on,
"to have an interview, perhaps the last, with the gentleman who
brought my dear Iris from America. I say, at Arnold's request, because
he asked me to do this, and I