" continued Lady
Canterbridge as they walked on.

"While we were at The Lookout she was our nearest neighbor."

"And I suppose your wife will consider it quite proper for you to
see her again at my house?" said Lady Canterbridge, with a return of
conventional levity.

"Oh! quite," said Bradley.

They had reached the low Norman-arched side-entrance to the quadrangle.
As Bradley swung open the bolt-studded oaken door to let her pass, she
said carelessly,--

"Then you are not coming in now?"

"No; I shall walk a little longer."

"And I am quite forgiven?"

"I am thanking you very much," he said, smiling directly into her blue
eyes. She lowered them, and vanished into the darkness of the passage.

The news of Minty's success was further corroborated by Sir Robert,
who later that evening called Bradley into the study. "Frank has been
writing from Nice that he has renewed his acquaintance with some old
Californian friends of yours--a Mr. and Miss Sharpe. Lady Canterbridge
says that they are well known in London to some of our friends, but I
would like to ask you something about them. Lady Mainwaring was on the
point of inviting them here when I received a letter from Mr. Sharpe
asking for a BUSINESS interview. Pray who is this Sharpe?"

"You say he writes for a BUSINESS interview?" asked Bradley.

"Yes."

Bradley hesitated for a moment and then said quietly, "Perhaps, then, I
am justified in a breach of confidence to him, in order to answer your
question. He is the man who has assumed all the liabilities of the
Sierran Land and Timber Company to enable the Bank to resume payment.
But he did it on the condition that you were never to know it. For the
rest, he was a blacksmith who made a fortune, as Lady Canterbridge will
tell you."

"How very odd--how kind, I mean. I should like to have been civil to him
on Frank's account alone."

"I should see him on business and be civil to him afterwards." Sir
Robert received the American's levity with his usual seriousness.

"No, they must come here for Christmas. His daughter is--?"

"Araminta Eulalie Sharpe," said Bradley, in defiant memory of Lady
Canterbridge.

Sir Robert winced audibly. "I shall rely on you, my dear boy, to help me
make it pleasant for them," he said.

Christmas came, but not Minty. It drew a large contingent from
Oldenhurst to the quaint old church, who came to view the green-wreathed
monuments, and walls spotted with crimson berries, as if w