from which he administered its affairs, visited its incumbencies,
overlooked and surveyed its lands, and--occasionally--collected its
rents. There were not wanting critics who averred that these were
scarcely remunerative, and that the young San Francisco fine gentleman,
who was only Hamilton Brant's son, after all, yet who wished to ape
the dignity and degree of a large landholder, had made a very foolish
bargain. I grieve to say that one of his own tenants, namely, Jim
Hooker, in his secret heart inclined to that belief, and looked upon
Clarence's speculation as an act of far-seeing and inordinate vanity.

Indeed, the belligerent Jim had partly--and of course darkly--intimated
something of this to Susy in their brief reunion at the casa during
the few days that followed its successful reoccupation. And Clarence,
remembering her older caprices, and her remark on her first recognition
of him, was quite surprised at the easy familiarity of her reception
of this forgotten companion of their childhood. But he was still more
concerned in noticing, for the first time, a singular sympathetic
understanding of each other, and an odd similarity of occasional action
and expression between them. It was a part of this monstrous peculiarity
that neither the sympathy nor the likeness suggested any particular
friendship or amity in the pair, but rather a mutual antagonism and
suspicion. Mrs. Peyton, coldly polite to Clarence's former COMPANION,
but condescendingly gracious to his present TENANT and retainer, did not
notice it, preoccupied with the annoyance and pain of Susy's frequent
references to the old days of their democratic equality.

"You don't remember, Jim, the time that you painted my face in the
wagon, and got me up as an Indian papoose?" she said mischievously.

But Jim, who had no desire to recall his previous humble position before
Mrs. Peyton or Clarence, was only vaguely responsive. Clarence, although
joyfully touched at this seeming evidence of Susy's loyalty to the past,
nevertheless found himself even more acutely pained at the distress
it caused Mrs. Peyton, and was as relieved as she was by Hooker's
reticence. For he had seen little of Susy since Peyton's death, and
there had been no repetition of their secret interviews. Neither had he,
nor she as far as he could judge, noticed the omission. He had been more
than usually kind, gentle, and protecting in his manner towards her,
with little reference, however, to