the old
estate they could get it by the expenditure of a little capital. He
offered to make the trial; that was the compromise they're talking
about. But he didn't say anything about there being no 'Lord' McHulish."

"Perhaps he thought, as you were Americans, you didn't care for THAT,"
said the consul dryly.

"That's no reason why we shouldn't have it if it belonged to us, or we
chose to pay for it," said the lady pertly.

"Then your changed personal relations with Mr. McHulish is the reason
why you hear so little of his progress or his expectations?"

"Yes; but he don't know that they are changed, for we haven't seen him
since we've been here, although they say he's here, and hiding somewhere
about."

"Why should he be hiding?"

The young girl lifted her pretty brows. "Maybe he thinks it's
mysterious. Didn't I tell you he was a crank?" Yet she laughed so
naively, and with such sublime unconsciousness of any reflection on
herself, that the consul was obliged to smile too.

"You certainly do not seem to be breaking your heart as well as your
engagement," he said.

"Not much--but here comes maw. Look here," she said, turning suddenly
and coaxingly upon him, "if she asks you to come along with us up north,
you'll come, won't you? Do! It will be such fun!"

"Up north?" repeated the consul interrogatively.

"Yes; to see the property. Here's maw."

A more languid but equally well-appointed woman had entered the room.
When the ceremony of introduction was over, she turned to her daughter
and said, "Run away, dear, while I talk business with--er--this
gentleman," and, as the girl withdrew laughingly, she half stifled a
reminiscent yawn, and raised her heavy lids to the consul.

"You've had a talk with my Elsie?"

The consul confessed to having had that pleasure.

"She speaks her mind," said Mrs. Kirkby wearily, "but she means well,
and for all her flightiness her head's level. And since her father died
she runs me," she continued with a slight laugh. After a pause, she
added abstractedly, "I suppose she told you of her engagement to young
McHulish?"

"Yes; but she said she had broken it."

Mrs. Kirkby lifted her eyebrows with an expression of relief. "It was a
piece of girl and boy foolishness, anyway," she said. "Elsie and he were
children together at MacCorkleville,--second cousins, in fact,--and I
reckon he got her fancy excited over his nobility, and his being the
chief of the McHulishes. Of course Cu