n either cheek. It seemed to Robert, as he
glanced from one to the other of them, that he had never seen his father
look so evil, or his sister so beautiful.

"Who is the fellow, then?" asked the old man after a considerable pause.
"I hope he got all this in an honest fashion. Five millions in jewels,
you say. Good gracious me! Ready to give it away, too, but afraid of
pauperising any one. You can tell him, Robert, that you know of one
very deserving case which has not the slightest objection to being
pauperised."

"But who can he possibly be, Robert?" cried Laura. "Haw cannot be his
real name. He must be some disguised prince, or perhaps a king in exile.
Oh, I should have loved to have seen those diamonds and the emeralds! I
always think that emeralds suit dark people best. You must tell me again
all about that museum, Robert."

"I don't think that he is anything more than he pretends to be," her
brother answered. "He has the plain, quiet manners of an ordinary
middle-class Englishman. There was no particular polish that I
could see. He knew a little about books and pictures, just enough to
appreciate them, but nothing more. No, I fancy that he is a man quite in
our own position of life, who has in some way inherited a vast sum. Of
course it is difficult for me to form an estimate, but I should judge
that what I saw to-day--house, pictures, jewels, books, and so on--could
never have been bought under twenty millions, and I am sure that that
figure is entirely an under-statement."

"I never knew but one Haw," said old McIntyre, drumming his fingers on
the table; "he was a foreman in my pin-fire cartridge-case department.
But he was an elderly single man. Well, I hope he got it all honestly. I
hope the money is clean."

"And really, really, he is coming to see us!" cried Laura, clapping her
hands. "Oh, when do you think he will come, Robert? Do give me warning.
Do you think it will be to-morrow?"

"I am sure I cannot say."

"I should so love to see him. I don't know when I have been so
interested."

"Why, you have a letter there," remarked Robert. "From Hector, too, by
the foreign stamp. How is he?"

"It only came this evening. I have not opened it yet. To tell the truth,
I have been so interested in your story that I had forgotten all about
it. Poor old Hector! It is from Madeira." She glanced rapidly over the
four pages of straggling writing in the young sailor's bold schoolboyish
hand. "Oh, he is all right