claim his son? Why had he left his boy to be
reared by a man who hated the boy's father? It was a strange thing to
do, and it must be that his father was dead.

At this time Richard was filled with ambitions,--fired by his early
companionship with Bertrand Ballard,--and thought he would go to
France and become an artist;--to France, the Mecca of Bertrand's
dreams--he desired of all things to go there for study. But of all
this he said nothing to any one, for where was the money? He would
never ask his uncle for it, and now that he had learned that he had
been all his young life really a dependent on the bounty of his Uncle
Peter, he could no longer accept his help. He would hereafter make his
own way, asking no favors.

The old aunts guessed at his predicament, and offered to give him for
his mother's sake enough to carry him through the first year, but he
would not allow them to take from their income to pay his bills. No,
he would take his way back to America, and find a place for himself in
the new world; seek some active, stirring work, and save money, and
sometime--sometime he would do the things his heart loved. He often
thought of Betty, the little Betty who used to run to meet him and say
such quaint things; some day he would go to her and take her with him.
He would work first and do something worthy of so choice a little
mortal.

Thus dreaming, after the manner of youth, he went to Ireland, to his
father's boyhood home. He found only distant relatives there, and
learned that his father had disposed of all he ever owned of Irish
soil to an Englishman. A cousin much older than himself owned and
still lived on the estate that had been his grandfather Kildene's, and
Richard was welcomed and treated with openhearted hospitality. But
there, also, little was known of his father, only that the peasants on
the estate remembered him lovingly as a free-hearted gentleman.

Even that little was a relief to Richard's sore heart. Yes, his father
must be dead. He was sorry. He was a lonely man, and to have a
relative who was his very own, as near as a father, would be a great
deal. His cousin, Peter Junior, was good as a friend, but from now on
they must take paths that diverged, and that old intimacy must
naturally change. His sweet Aunt Hester he loved, and she would fill
the mother's place if she could, but it was not to be. It would mean
help from his Uncle Peter, and that would mean taking a place in his
uncle's ba