keepsake for your sweetheart, I see."

"No, indeed," she answered gaily with a toss of her bonny head, "I'm
making a wedding present for this new nephew of mine when he marries
your daughter."

It was a long-shot prophecy. The doctor was even then a man past his
first youth; the neighbours looked upon him as a confirmed bachelor;
he seemed as unlikely ever to possess a daughter as a diamond mine.
Yet, all these improbabilities notwithstanding, he had taken to
himself the luxury of a wife within a very few years, and soon
children were climbing on his knees. I cannot say whether this
red-haired young woman had the gift of second sight or whether, by
some subtle power of suggestion, she willed the doctor to carry
out her prophecy. I only know that the prophecy _was_ startlingly
fulfilled, for among his children was one little girl who, when
she grew to womanhood, _did_ marry the nephew and _did_ get the
watch-chain as a wedding gift.

The doctor's daughter was an aunt of mine, and her romantic marriage,
by tying our two families together, gave me some slight claim on her
husband's affection. Propinquity afterwards ripened what opportunity
had begun; we lived long side by side in a far-away corner of the
world, and from the formal relationship of uncle and niece soon
slipped into that still better and warmer companionship of friend and
friend.

For me the friendship has ever been, is, and always will be, a thing
to take pride in, a thing to treasure. Nor will you wonder when I
confess that he of whom I speak is none other than the great Sir
Robert Hart, the man whose life has been as useful as varied, as
romantic as successful.

The story of it can be but imperfectly written now. There are many
shoals in the form of diplomatic indiscretions to steer clear of;
there is much weighing and sifting of political motives for serious
historians to do, but the time has not come for that. Much of the
romance of his long career in China lies over and above such things,
and of the romantic and personal side I here set down what I have
gathered from one and from another--chiefly from those who have had
the opportunity to collect their information at first hand, who either
knew him sooner than I or were themselves concerned in the events
described--in the hope that some readers may sufficiently enjoy the
romance of a great career to forgive any imperfections in the telling
for the sake of the story itself.

CHAPTER I