sly accumulated during the slow, uncounted ages of his progress
from the brute to the man.

They left the train at Settle at six o'clock the next morning, and were
at once taken charge of by the station-master, who had had his
instructions by telephone from the Parmenter mansion on the slopes of
Great Whernside. He conducted them at once to the Midland Hotel, where
they found a suite of apartments, luxuriously furnished, with fires
blazing in the grates, and everything looking very cosy under the soft
glow of the shaded electric lights. Baths were ready and breakfast would
be on the table at seven. At eight, Mr Parmenter, who practically owned
this suite of rooms, would drive over with Miss Parmenter in a couple of
motor-cars and take the party to the house.

"Sure, then," said Mrs O'Connor, when the arrangements had been
explained to her, "it must be very comfortable to have all the money to
buy just what you want, and make everything as easy as all this, and
it's yourself, Mr Lennard, we have to thank for making us the guests of
a millionaire, when neither Norah nor myself have so much as seen one.
Is he a very great man, this Mr Parmenter? It seems to me to be
something like going to dine with a duke."

"My dear Mrs O'Connor," laughed Lennard, "I can assure you that you will
find this master of millions one of Nature's own gentlemen. Although he
can make men rich or poor by a stroke of his pen, and, with a few others
like him, wield such power as was never in the hands of kings, you
wouldn't know him from a plain English country gentleman if it wasn't
for his American accent, and there's not very much of that."

"And his daughter, Miss Auriole, what's she like?" said Norah. "A
beauty, of course."

Lennard flushed somewhat suspiciously, and a keen glance of Norah's
Irish eyes read the meaning of that flush in an instant.

"Miss Parmenter is considered to be very beautiful," he replied, "and I
must confess that I share the general opinion."

"I thought so," said Norah, with a little nod that had a great deal of
meaning in it. "Now, I suppose we'd better go and change, or we'll be
late for breakfast. I certainly don't want the beautiful Miss Parmenter
to see me in this state for the first time."

"My dear Miss Castellan, I can assure you that you have not the
faintest reason to fear any comparison that might be made," laughed
Lennard as he left the room and went to have his tub.

Punctually at eight a double "