"
The smile on Miss Barrington's face, which was still almost beautiful
as well as patient, became a trifle wistful.
"There are few better men than my brother, though he is not clever,"
she said, and dropped her voice a little. "As to the other, he died in
India--beside his mountain gun--long ago."
"And you have never forgotten? He must have been worth it--I wonder if
loyalty and chivalric faith belong only to the past," said the girl,
reaching up a rounded arm and patting her aunt's thin hand. "And now
we will be practical. I fancied the head of the settlement looked
worried when he met me, and he is not very proficient at hiding his
feelings."
Miss Barrington sighed. "I am afraid that is nothing very new, and
with wheat steadily falling and our granaries full, he has cause for
anxiety. Then the fact that Lance Courthorne has divided your
inheritance and is going to settle here has been troubling him."
"The first is the lesser evil," said the girl, with a little laugh. "I
wore very short frocks when I last saw Lance in England, and so far as
I can remember he had the face of an angel and the temper of a devil.
But did not my uncle endeavor to buy him off, and--for I know you have
been finding out things--I want you to tell me all about him."
"He would not take the money," said Miss Barrington, and sat in
thoughtful silence a space. Then, and perhaps she had a reason, she
quietly recounted Courthorne's Canadian history so far as her brother's
agents had been able to trace it, not omitting, dainty in thought and
speech as she was, one or two incidents which a mother might have kept
back from her daughter's ears.
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