n't it, Mr. Burke?"

She ran on, without waiting for any answer: "Uncle used to call him
'Jim,' and to say he looked forward to his coming every day that time
when he had to lay up for two months with that sprained ankle of
his----"

"When was that, Cousin Nellie, if I may ask?" put in the young American
quietly.

"Why, that was just a twelvemonth ago, Mr. Burke told me; didn't you,
Mr. Burke?" ran on the unsuspecting Miss Million, while I, standing
still in the background as a well-trained lady's-maid should do,
permitted myself one glance at the face of that young pretender.

It was blank as a stone mask. I looked at Mr. Jessop. His grave,
penetrating eyes were fixed upon that mask.

As for Miss Vi Vassity, to whom I also turned, I saw her common, clever,
vivacious face lighted up with a variety of expressions: amusement,
curiosity, irony. She knew, as well as I did, what was happening. She
was keener than I to see what would happen next.

In far less time than it takes to tell all this Miss Million had rattled
on: "Oh, yes; Mr. Burke was with uncle in Chicago pretty near every day
all the last year of his life, wasn't you, Mr. Burke? Shows how well he
used to know him, doesn't it? And then when he heard my name at the
Hotel Sizzle!

"Soon as he heard that I was related to Mr. Samuel Million, his old
friend, he came round and chummed up at once. It is funny, isn't it,"
concluded Miss Million, "the queer way you get to know people that
you've never dreamt about?"

"Yes, it's real funny, I guess, that I haven't happened to have gotten
to know Mr. Burke while he was on the other side," broke in the voice of
the American, speaking quietly but very distinctly as it "gave away" the
pretensions of the Honourable Jim in two simple sentences.

"I guess there wasn't a day in the last two years that I wasn't visiting
the old man. And I never heard anything about a sprained ankle, nor yet
about his having had any Mr. Burke to come around and see him."

After this revelation there was a pause that seemed to last for ever.
But I suppose it couldn't have been as long as that. For I, turning my
eyes from the quartette on the turf, was watching a big white seagull
wheeling and swooping above the cliff.

Its long wings had only flapped, slowly, twice, before the hearty voice
of Miss Vi Vassity broke the silence that I felt to be quite
nerve-racking.

"Well! Are these biographical notes going to keep us busy for the whole