-travellers--Lord Huntingford. Not so much for his
manner toward them as for his harsh, bitter attitude toward his
young wife.

He reprimanded and criticised her openly, very much as he would have
spoken to a child, and always undeservedly. She endured patiently, to
all appearances, and her cloud of humiliation was swept away by the
knowledge that her new friends saw the injustice of his attacks. She did
not pose before them as a martyr; but they could see the subdued and
angry pride and the checked rebellion, for the mask of submission was
thin, even though it was dutiful.

The two young women, unlike as two women could be, became fast friends.
The Englishwoman was refinement, sweetness, even royalty itself; the
American, proud, equally refined, aggressive and possessed of a wit,
shrewdness and spontaneity of humor that often amazed the less subtle of
the two. Tinges of jealousy sometimes shot into Grace's heart when she
saw Hugh talking to the new friend, but they disappeared with the
recollection of her Ladyship's pure, gentle nobility of character. It is
seen rarely by one woman in another.

And Veath? The stalwart, fresh-hearted, lean-faced Indianian was happier
than he had dreamed he could be when he drearily went aboard a ship at
New York with the shadow of exile upon him. He had won the friendship of
all. The brain of the Westerner was as big as his heart, and it had been
filled with the things which make men valuable to the world. Men called
him the "real American," and women conveyed a world of meaning in the
simple, earnest expression--"I like Mr. Veath."

Veath was now unmistakably in love with Grace Vernon. The fact was borne
in upon him more and more positively as the sunny days and beautiful
nights drew them nearer to the journey's end. Occasionally he lapsed
into strange fits of dejection. These came when he stopped to ponder
over certain prospects, hopes and the stores of life. At times he cursed
the fate which had cast him into the world, big and strong, yet
apparently helpless. It had not been his ambition to begin life in the
capacity which now presented itself. His hopes had been limitless.
Poverty had made his mind a treasure; but poverty had also kept it
buried. He saw before him the long fight for opportunity, position,
honor; but he was not the sort to quail. The victory would be glorious
when he thought what it might bring to him from Grace Ridge--she who
was going to be a missionary. A lon