a very happy family
at the chateau, with the English and American heirs ever ready to heave
things at one another, regardless of propriety or the glassware.

"The islanders," said Mr. Bowles, lighting a cigarette, "it looks to me,
have all the best of the situation. They get the property whether they
marry or not, while the original beneficiaries have to marry each other
or get off the island at the end of the year. Most of the islanders have
got three or four wives already. I daresay the legators took that into
consideration when they devised the will. Von Blitz, the German, has
three and is talking of another."

"You mean to say that they can have as many wives as they choose?"
demanded Saunders, wrinkling his brow.

"Yes, just so long as they don't choose anybody else's."

Saunders was buried in thought for a long time, then he exclaimed,
unconsciously aloud:

"My word!"

"Eh?" queried Bowles, arousing himself.

"I didn't say anything," retorted Saunders, looking up into the tree
tops.

In the course of an hour--a soft, sleepy hour, too, despite the wondrous
novelty of the scene and the situation--the travellers came into view of
the now famous chateau.

Standing out against the sky, fully a mile ahead, was the home to which
they were coming. The chateau, beautiful as a picture, lifted itself
like a dream castle above all that was earthly and sordid; it smiled
down from its lofty terrace and glistened in the sunset glow, like the
jewel that had been its godmother. Long and low, scolloped by its
gables, parapets and budding towers, the vast building gleamed red
against the blue sky from one point of view and still redder against the
green mountain from another. Soft, rich reds--not the red of blood, but
of the unpolished ruby--seemed to melt softly in the eye as one gazed
upward in simple wonder. The dream house of two lonely old men who had
no place where they could spend their money!

According to its own records, the chateau, fashioned quite closely after
a famous structure in France, was designed and built by La Marche, the
ill-fated French architect who was lost at sea in the wreck of the
_Vendome_. Three years and more than seven hundred thousand pounds
sterling, or to make it seem more prodigious, nearly eighteen million
francs, were consumed in its building. An army of skilled artisans had
come out from France and Austria to make this quixotic dream a reality
before the two old men should go into