ld."

"Then I will."

"You will?"

"Yes."

"Well, well!"

"Your mother will be glad."

"What?" ejaculated Desmond.

"Your mother will be glad."

"How do you know?"

"She told me so."

That night there was a happy party under the old farmhouse roof. Mrs.
Dare had met her son with tears of joy in her eyes, and Desmond had told
the weird tale of his remarkable adventures.

At once our hero set to work to prepare for college. He had talked the
matter over with his mother and with Amy, and in due time he did enter
Amherst College, and for a long time his adventures ceased. He heard
occasionally from Mr. Brooks, who appeared to be doing well and who sent
money on at intervals, but no explanation. And so the time passed until
Desmond graduated and returned home. He met his mother and Amy, and a
moment later there came forth from the house a well-known figure; it was
Brooks, the whilom wizard tramp.

Again there followed a pleasant evening, and on the following morning
Desmond was out bright and early to take a walk over the farm. He had
gone but a short distance when he saw a figure in the grove near the
house. He advanced and met his old friend the wizard tramp.

"You are out early," said Desmond.

"Yes, I thought I might meet you."

"And you will now tell me how you have succeeded?"

"Yes, Desmond, I will tell you all now, and I owe all to you. We are
rich--very rich. We found the mine, Creedon and I, and we got
capitalists interested and developed it. You were our silent partner,
and to-day you are worth a quarter of a million and I am worth as much
more, or rather Amy is, for I have been working for my child."

"I have suspected all along that Amy was your daughter. Has she told you
anything?"

"Yes, she has told me she is to become your wife."

"What do you think of it?"

"It has been the one hope of my life that you would win her love and she
yours. It was for this reason I insisted upon your returning to the
East, and the wisdom of my plans is fully confirmed."

"You have a revelation to make to me."

"I have made the revelation--Amy is my own child."

"And is that all you have to reveal? I've known that all along."

"That is my most important revelation, but I have another to make. My
father was the younger son of an English nobleman; he married a
beautiful but poor girl, as the world counts riches, and his father
drove him away, and he came here to America. He never saw his brother
ag