owed freely.

Not until the riders drew rein at "The Hall" did Henry Mogridge
overtake his cousin in the headlong race home. As it was, she
dismounted before he could offer assistance and ran up the steps and
across the white pillared veranda into the great wainscoted hall. An
instant she paused, looking up at the portrait of a beautiful woman
hanging there, and then went to her room.

The flickering light from the logs in the big fireplace relieved the
shadows on the face in the frame, a face so like that of the girl's as
to leave no doubt whence she had inherited her charms.

The colour of hair and eyes, the poise of head, all were strikingly
like, but in the girl's face was a wilful recklessness, perhaps due to
lack of a mother's care, the mother she had never known, but more than
probable an inheritance from her father, the reckless, hot-headed,
sporting squire.

At table that evening the girl said little and made an excuse to leave
before the last course.

Would her cousin tell her father? At the thought a look of defiance
was in the girl's face, a look not pleasant to see there.

As for the youth with the long nose and the narrow eyes, he had other
plans for the present. Just now he was making himself as companionable
as possible to his uncle, and it must be admitted he knew somewhat of
the ways in which to do this. He told of the latest plays and
scandals, to all of which the squire listened with occasional
interruptions and allusions to what he knew of the London of the
Fifties.

"Jupiter!" cried Mogridge, "but I'd think you'd find the Old Dominion
mighty tame after the pleasures and associations you enjoyed in that
good old town."

"It's all in adapting one's self, my boy. I'm a bit old and Lisbeth is
too young to show you what pleasures the Old Dominion really can
afford. I'll have to turn you over to the Reverend Pothero. He's a
rare blade and sure cure for ennui."

"We hear tales of some of your Virginia parsons, and the joke of it is
the stories, many of them at least, come from churchmen."

"Oh, well, some things might be better, I suppose, but what can you
expect when so few desire to take up the work in this country? To tell
the truth, it sometimes was confoundly lonely at The Hall before
Pothero came. But you haven't told me anything of the government's
latest policy with respect to these colonies. Will Lord North's hand
be strong on the helm and what have we to fear from that arch
demagog