last he went out West with a man to set up a cattle ranch. An'
hadn't been gone a week 'fore one night, I got home from sellin' my
papers, 'n' the rooms wus locked up 'n' empty, 'n' the woman o' the
house, she told me Minna 'd gone--shown a clean pair o' heels. Some un
else said she'd gone across the water to be nuss to a lady as had a
little baby, too. Never heard a word of her since--nuther has Ben. If
I'd ha' bin him, I wouldn't ha' fretted a bit--'n' I guess he didn't.
But he thought a heap o' her at the start. Tell you, he was spoons on
her. She was a daisy-lookin' gal, too, when she was dressed up 'n' not
mad. She'd big black eyes 'n' black hair down to her knees; she'd make
it into a rope as big as your arm, and twist it 'round 'n' 'round her
head; 'n' I tell you her eyes 'd snap! Folks used to say she was part
_I_tali-un--said her mother or father 'd come from there, 'n' it made
her queer. I tell ye, she was one of 'em--she was!"

He often told Mr. Hobbs stories of her and of his brother Ben, who,
since his going out West, had written once or twice to Dick.

Ben's luck had not been good, and he had wandered from place to place;
but at last he had settled on a ranch in California, where he was at
work at the time when Dick became acquainted with Mr Hobbs.

"That gal," said Dick one day, "she took all the grit out o' him. I
couldn't help feelin' sorry for him sometimes."

They were sitting in the store door-way together, and Mr. Hobbs was
filling his pipe.

"He oughtn't to 've married," he said solemnly, as he rose to get a
match. "Women--I never could see any use in 'em myself."

As he took the match from its box, he stopped and looked down on the
counter.

"Why!" he said, "if here isn't a letter! I didn't see it before. The
postman must have laid it down when I wasn't noticin', or the newspaper
slipped over it."

He picked it up and looked at it carefully.

"It's from HIM!" he exclaimed. "That's the very one it's from!"

He forgot his pipe altogether. He went back to his chair quite excited
and took his pocket-knife and opened the envelope.

"I wonder what news there is this time," he said.

And then he unfolded the letter and read as follows:

"DORINCOURT CASTLE" My dear Mr. Hobbs

"I write this in a great hury becaus i have something curous to tell you
i know you will be very mutch suprised my dear frend when i tel you. It
is all a mistake and i am not a lord and i shall not have to be an earl