ver and give us a
look up. There are a few bucks and partridges left on the place still."

So William Dawes had departed to his farm, and Gerard had fallen upon
his feet at last; which satisfactory position, what with the comfortable
sum this arrangement would give him, coupled with the invaluable
experience he had gained, it would be a strange thing if he did not
manage to keep.

Just as the first gong was sounding for dinner, a light American
"spider" drew up at the gate, and from it there descended two persons.

"By your leave, my good fellow. Would, you mind letting me pass?" said
Mr Kingsland, rather testily, as struggling with a large and weighty
Gladstone bag he found his ingress barred by some one who showed not the
smallest disposition to stand aside.

"Don't you know me, Mr Kingsland?"

"Know you? Eh--what! 'Pon my life I don't," answered the other,
staring inquiringly at the bronzed, bearded young fellow before him.
Then, as in a flash, "Why, it's Ridgeley--young Ridgeley--of course!
But who'd have known you! How are you, my dear fellow, how are you?"

And the cheery old settler, dropping the weighty Gladstone, wrung his
young friend's hand in a manner that left no sort of doubt as to the
genuine pleasure wherewith he regarded the meeting.

"Why, what a man you've grown!" he went on, looking Gerard up and down
with an approval that made the latter feel and look extremely foolish.
"May!" he called out. "Where are you, May? Here's young Ridgeley, come
back looking twice the chap he was when he went, as I always said he
would."

As the girl came forward with extended hand, and a look of unaffected
pleasure in her eyes, Gerard was not quite sure whether he was standing
on his head or on his heels. He thought he had never seen a sweeter,
lovelier vision in his life. And, indeed, from an impartial standpoint,
and outside the enthusiasm of our young friend, May Kingsland certainly
was a very sweet and winsome girl, and one calculated, as she stood
there in all the brightness of her fresh young beauty, to damage a far
less susceptible heart than that which she had so easily taken captive.

"We are so glad to see you again, Mr Ridgeley," she said simply, though
this time there was ever so faint a tinge of constraint, which had
Gerard read and understood would have lifted him into the seventh heaven
of delight. "You will have such a lot of adventures to tell us
by-and-by. I am dying to hear if you