ster will manage to get something
for the shareholders out of it,--I never knew him to fail in a money
speculation yet,--but I think that's about all. I had an idea of going
up with Elsie to take a look at the property, and I thought of asking
you to join us. Did Elsie tell you? I know she'd like it--and so would
I."

For all her indolent, purposeless manner, there was enough latent
sincerity and earnestness in her request to interest the consul.
Besides, his own curiosity in regard to this singularly supported claim
was excited, and here seemed to be an opportunity of satisfying it. He
was not quite sure, either, that his previous antagonism to his fair
countrywoman's apparent selfishness and snobbery was entirely just. He
had been absent from America a long time; perhaps it was he himself
who had changed, and lost touch with his compatriots. And yet the
demonstrative independence and recklessness of men like Custer were less
objectionable to, and less inconsistent with, his American ideas than
the snobbishness and almost servile adaptability of the women. Or was
it possible that it was only a weakness of the sex, which no republican
nativity or education could eliminate? Nevertheless he looked up
smilingly.

"But the property is, I understand, scattered about in various places,"
he said.

"Oh, but we mean to go only to Kelpie Island, where there is the ruin of
an old castle. Elsie must see that."

The consul thought it might be amusing. "By all means let us see that. I
shall be delighted to go with you."

His ready and unqualified assent appeared to relieve and dissipate the
lady's abstraction. She became more natural and confiding; spoke freely
of Malcolm's mania, which she seemed to accept as a hallucination or a
conviction with equal cheerfulness, and, in brief, convinced the
consul that her connection with the scheme was only the caprice of
inexperienced and unaccustomed idleness. He left her, promising to
return the next day and arrange for their early departure.

His way home lay through one of the public squares of St. Kentigern, at
an hour of the afternoon when it was crossed by working men and women
returning to their quarters from the docks and factories. Never in any
light a picturesque or even cheery procession, there were days when
its unwholesome, monotonous poverty and dull hopelessness of prospect
impressed him more forcibly. He remembered how at first the spectacle
of barefooted girls and wome