*

It is two years later, and a motor-car drove up to a beautiful house that
stood on the place that Balmoral formerly occupied. Out of the motor
stepped a young man with a good-humoured, freckled face, very like
Horatia, whom he handed out, and who was now a very nice-looking girl of
seventeen.

'We've come to your house-warming, Sarah,' she cried. 'And, oh, what a
beautiful house! It's almost as good as the last one. And you've got a
marble staircase and all. Why, it's exactly like the other!' she cried.

Sarah shook her head. 'It's not so big or so grand; but we tried to make
it like the last to please father and mother. Poor mother was always
talking of her marble staircase, so that's exactly copied, and so is the
parquetry flooring, and her rooms are as like as we could make them; but
we have no royal apartments for you this time,' she said.

'I'm glad of it. I don't mind telling you now that I used to have a
nightmare every night, dreaming that burglars had come in and murdered me
for my wealth--thinking it was mine, you know,' Horatia confided to her.

'Father is in the drawing-room waiting to see you. He is still rather an
invalid,' said Sarah as she led the way to it.

'It's almost the same, Sarah!' Horatia cried again. 'Yes; and we still
have the gold plate and Sevres china. Sykes saved a lot of things, we
found afterwards; but it's not so palatial, and father wouldn't have it
called Balmoral any more. He said that was boastful.'

'Oh! What is the name of the house, then?' inquired Horatia.

'Father will tell you,' said Sarah.

'So you've kept your promise, and come to stay with us again; only, this
time it's my son's house,' said Mr Mark Clay.

'Oh no, father; he says not,' cried Sarah.

Mr Clay shook his head. 'I lost my all when I lost Balmoral, and he built
up the fortune again. I'll never have a mansion here; but I'm content to
stay in my son's till I get a mansion in the sky,' he said.

Horatia smiled at the allusion to her speech. 'What is the name of the
house?' she asked.

'Horatia House. We all wished to have something to remind us that it was
your family we had to thank for having a home again. You made the tide
turn and the dye take. George wanted to call it Arnedale House, after
your ancestor; but Sarah said, "Call it Horatia House," and so we did.'

'And a very pretty name it is,' said little Mrs Clay, who looked very
pretty herself.

'That is a very pretty compliment you have pa