all ever
take you from me again but the grave! And if--"

"De earl of Rossmore, fum Englan'!"

"My father!" The young man released the girl and hung his head.

The old gentleman stood surveying the couple--the one with a strongly
complimentary right eye, the other with a mixed expression done with the
left. This is difficult, and not often resorted to. Presently his face
relaxed into a kind of constructive gentleness, and he said to his son:

"Don't you think you could embrace me, too?"

The young man did it with alacrity. "Then you are the son of an earl,
after all," said Sally, reproachfully.

"Yes, I--"

"Then I won't have you!"

"O, but you know--"

"No, I will not. You've told me another fib."

"She's right. Go away and leave us. I want to talk with her."

Berkeley was obliged to go. But he did not go far. He remained on the
premises. At midnight the conference between the old gentleman and the
young girl was still going blithely on, but it presently drew to a close,
and the former said:

"I came all the way over here to inspect you, my dear, with the general
idea of breaking off this match if there were two fools of you, but as
there's only one, you can have him if you'll take him."

"Indeed I will, then! May I kiss you?"

"You may. Thank you. Now you shall have that privilege whenever you are
good."

Meantime Hawkins had long ago returned and slipped up into the
laboratory. He was rather disconcerted to find his late invention,
Snodgrass, there. The news was told him that the English Rossmore was
come,

--"and I'm his son, Viscount Berkeley, not Howard Tracy any more."

Hawkins was aghast. He said:

"Good gracious, then you're dead!"

"Dead?"

"Yes you are--we've got your ashes."

"Hang those ashes, I'm tired of them; I'll give them to my father."

Slowly and painfully the statesman worked the truth into his head that
this was really a flesh and blood young man, and not the insubstantial
resurrection he and Sellers had so long supposed him to be. Then he said
with feeling--

"I'm so glad; so glad on Sally's account, poor thing. We took you for a
departed materialized bank thief from Tahlequah. This will be a heavy
blow to Sellers." Then he explained the whole matter to Berkeley, who
said:

"Well, the Claimant must manage to stand the blow, severe as it is.
But he'll get over the disappointment."

"Who--the colonel? He'll get over it the minute he invents a n