eir legs to the
porch-railing. The soft light fell around, outlining here and there a
bit of vine as if it were held against a silver background. A few early
insects were chirping, and somewhere down the street there was a waft of
distant music.

"Succeeded!" Jack drew a long breath.

"Yes: with a woman too. Nay, you need not look at me so wonderingly. I
have not sold myself for base gold to the Evil One," laughing lightly.
"I have never told you much about myself; for, like the needy
knife-grinder, 'story, God bless you! there was none to tell;' but there
is a chapter now, and you must hear it first. My mother was left an
orphan in her infancy, and her aunt adopted her. She was a canny
Scotswoman, by name Jean McLeod. She was very good to my mother, who
married quite to her liking, although my father was not rich, but we
always lived in a certain style, and my father had a fine reputation as
a lawyer. My mother's death, the result of an accident, so prostrated
him, that he never recovered from the shock. Aunt McLeod came to stay
with us through that weary time. Then she took us both to her heart and
home: it was a large warm heart and a beautiful home. My father left a
little: it was made over to me; and my sister, five years younger than
I, was brought up properly, and married properly, and lives in Chicago
in elegant style. Then Aunt Jean tried her hand on me, chose a suitable
young woman, and insisted that the fates had decided it. The upshot was
a quarrel. Not but what the girl was nice enough, and all that, but I
did not care to marry; and so I walked off to Europe, and was there
three years. Some rather cool letters passed between us at first, but
they grew warmer; and when I returned it was winter, and she was in New
York. I went straight up to her house. She was very glad to see me; and
there in her lovely library, all glow and softness and perfume, by the
side of the grate, with a screen in her hand, sat Anastasia Lothrop. She
is Aunt Jean's pet _protegee_, though she has home and lands and people
of her own. A handsome woman too, by Jove! However, we have gone our
separate ways. I think she (Aunt Jean) was rather annoyed at my settling
at Yerbury.

"Well, I went to Narragansett, and found her alone this time; and she
has promised to buy Hope Mills. I do believe there's no end to the
woman's money. She talked it over as a mere bagatelle. I am to meet her
in New York, and you are to go down, Jack; and we are