t. He gets on with her--he and I never hit it off ... quite.
I fear I wasn't born lordly, even though my father was a Raincy. They
say he disgraced his family by being an artist, and that it was when he
was painting Dame Comfort's portrait that--oh, I say, there's Patsy, or
I'm the son of a Dutchman!"

As only the moment before he had been declaring himself the son of a De
Raincy, this could hardly be. So there was good prima facie evidence
that, in Louis's opinion, there _was_ Patsy, whoever Patsy might be.

In a moment he had the spy-glass to his eye. He stilled the boyish
flailing of his legs in the air as he lay prone on the stile-top,
leaning on his elbows, and intently studying something that flashed and
was lost among the birches that shaded the path up the glen of the Abbey
Burn.

"Patsy it is, by Jove of the Capitol!" he proclaimed triumphantly, and
shutting up the brass telescope with a facile snap of sliding tubes, he
slipped it into his pocket and sprang off the stile. In three seconds he
was on Ferris territory--and a trespasser. Louis Raincy was quick,
impulsive, with fair Norse hair blown in what the country folk called a
"birse" about his face, and dark-blue western eyes--the eyes of the
island MacBrydes who had built ships to ride the sea, and whose younger
branches had captained and made fortunes out of far sea adventuring. So
with the thoroughness of these same privateer shipbuilders, Louis
precipitated himself down the steep breakneck cliff, catching the trunk
of a pine here, or snatching at a birch and swinging right round it
there to keep his speed from becoming a mere avalanche, till at last,
breathed a little and with a scraped hand, of which he took not the
slightest notice, he stood on the winding, hide-and-seek path which
meanders along the side of the Abbey Burn, as it were, keeping step with
it.

The pines stood about still and solemn. The light breeze from the sea
made no difference to them, but the birches quivered, blotting the white
of the path with myriads of purple splashes, none of which were distinct
or ever for a second stood still, criss-crossing and melting one into
the other, all equally a-dither with excitement.

Louis checked for a moment to breathe and listen. He said to himself
that Patsy, for whose sake he had torn through the underbrush at the
imminent danger of life and limb, was still far away down the glen.

"I shall go a bit farther till I find a snug corner and t