lonely pair of feet, the garden grown
into a neglected jungle, the slatternly negro girl in the kitchen singing
wild camp-meeting hymns as she went about her careless work.

"It sounds so lonely," Sheba said, with tender mournfulness.

"That was what it was--lonely," Rupert answered. "It's been a different
place since Matt came, but it has always been lonely. Uncle Tom," putting
his hand on the big knee near him, as impulsively as a child, "I love
that old Matt--I love him!"

"Ah, so do I!" burst forth Sheba. "Don't you, Uncle Tom?" And she put her
hand on the other knee.

Rupert looked down at the hand. It was so fair and soft and full of the
expression of sympathy--such an adorably womanly little hand, that one's
first impulse was to lay one's own upon it. He made a movement and then
remembered, and looked up, and their eyes met and rested on each other
gently.

When the subject of the claim was broached, Sheba thought it like a fairy
tale. She listened almost with bated breath. As Rupert had not realised
that he was pathetic in the relation of the first part of his story, so
he did not know that he was picturesque in this. But his material had
strong colour. The old man on the brink of splendid fortune, the strange,
unforeseen national disaster sweeping all before it and leaving only
poverty and ruin, the untouched wealth of the mines lying beneath the
earth on which battles had been fought--all the possibilities the future
might hold for one penniless boy--these things were full of suggestion
and excitement.

"You would be rich," said Sheba.

"So would Uncle Tom," Rupert answered, smiling; "and you, too."

Tom had been listening with a reflective look on his face. He tilted his
chair back and ran his hand through his hair.

"At all events, we couldn't _lose_ money if we didn't gain any," he said.
"That's where we're safe. When a man's got to the place where he hasn't
anything to lose, he can afford to take chances. Perhaps it's worth
thinking over. Let's go to bed, children. It's midnight."

When they said good-night to each other, the two young hands clung
together kindly and Sheba looked up with sympathetic eyes.

"Would you like to be very rich?" she asked.

"To-night I am rich," he answered. "That is because you and Uncle Tom
have made me feel as if I belonged to someone. It is so long since I have
seemed to belong to anyone."

"But now you belong to us," said Sheba.

He stood silently looking