romise. But mind, I shall
be a very inefficient one. I don't suppose you could find any one who
knew less about that sort of thing than I do."

"Oh, that will be all right, Sir William," the boy said quickly. "There
will be lots of people concerned who know all about it. Now that the
mine is going to be accessible, the right people will be more than ready
to take it up. I just wanted to have you there as the nominal head to
it, because you have always been so good to me, and you have brought me
luck since the beginning."

"Nonsense!" said Sir William. "You'll have only yourself to thank, my
boy, when you get on."

"Oh, I know better than that," said Anderson. Something very like tears
came into his eyes as he took the hand Sir William held out to him, and
then left the room as happy a youth of twenty-one as could be found in
London that day.

CHAPTER IV

There was another young creature, at that moment driving across London
to Prince's Gate, to whom the world looked very beautiful that day.
Rachel was still in a sort of rapturous bewilderment. The wonderful new
experience that had come to her, that she was contemplating for the
first time, seemed, as she saw it in the company of familiar
surroundings, more marvellous yet. At Maidenhead everything had been
unwonted. The new experience of going away alone, the enchanting repose
of the hot sunny days on the river, the look of the boughs as they
dipped lazily into the water, and the light dancing and dazzling on the
ripples of the stream--all had been part of the setting of the new
aspect of things, part of that great secret that she was beginning to
learn. Yet all the time she had had a feeling that when the setting was
altered, when she left this mysterious region of romance, life would
become ordinary again, the strange golden light with which it was
flooded would turn into the ordinary light of day, and she would find
herself where she had been before. But it was not so. Here she was back
again in the town she knew so well, driving towards her home--but the
new, strange possession had not left her, the secret was hers still. It
had all come so quickly that she had not realised what she felt. Was she
"in love," the thing that she had taken for granted would happen to her
some day, but that she had not yet longed for? Rachel, it must be
confessed, had not been entirely given up to romance; she had not been
waiting, watching for the fairy prince who should ri