y. "Perhaps he wishes to
congratulate you on the success of your song. Yes, Rona, go. It would be
most ungracious to refuse."

With a face in which shyness, nervousness, pride, and defiance strove
for the mastery, Rona approached Lord Glyncraig. He held out his hand to
her.

"Won't you bury the hatchet, and let us be friends at last, Rona?" he
said. "I'm proud of my granddaughter to-day. You're a true chip of the
old block, a Mitchell to your finger-tips--and" (in a lower tone) "with
your mother's voice thrown into the bargain. Blood is thicker than
water, child, and it's time now for bygones to become bygones. I shall
write to your father to-night, and set things straight."

* * * * *

"How is it that you've actually been a whole year at The Woodlands and
never let anybody have the least hint that Lord Glyncraig is your
grandfather? Don't you know what an enormous difference it would have
made to your position in the school? Stephie is quite hysterical about
it. Why was it such a dead secret?" asked Ulyth of her room-mate, as
they took off their party dresses, when the guests had gone.

"It's rather a long story," replied Rona, sitting down on her bed. "In
the first place, I dare say you've guessed that Dad was the prodigal of
the family. He never did anything very bad, poor dear, but he was packed
off to the colonies in disgrace, and told that he might stay there. At
Melbourne he met a lovely opera singer, who was on tour in Australia,
and married her. That made my grandfather more angry than anything else
he had done. I'm not ashamed of my mother. She was very clever, and sang
like an angel, I'm told, though I can't remember her. When she died, Dad
went to New Zealand and started farming. Mrs. Barker was hardly an ideal
person to bring me up, but she was the only woman we could get to stop
in such an out-of-the-way place. I must have been an awful specimen of a
child; I don't like to remember what things I did then. When I was about
ten, Father went away for a few weeks to the North Island, and while he
was gone, Mrs. Barker went off in the gig to have a day's shopping at
the nearest store. She left me alone in the house. I wasn't frightened,
for I was quite accustomed to it. No one but a chance neighbour ever
came near. Yet that day was just the exception that proves the rule.
Early in the afternoon a grand travelling motor drove up, and a lady and
gentleman knocked at the door, a