ce with Neil McPherson, between whom and himself there sprung
up a friendship which nothing had weakened as yet. Several times he had
been a guest in Neil's home, where Lady Jane treated him with the utmost
civility, and admitted that for an American he really was refined and
gentlemanly. He knew Jack Trevellian, and Blanche, and all Neil's
intimate friends, and had the _entree_ to the same society with them,
whenever he chose to avail himself of it, which was not very often. He
was in Europe for study, he said, and not for society, and he devoted
himself to his books with an energy and will which put him at the head
of his class in Eton, and won him an enviable reputation for scholarship
at Oxford, where he had now been for nearly four years, and where he
intended to remain until his Aunt Lucy, and possibly his Aunt Hannah,
crossed the sea and joined him for an extended tour.

Then he was going home for good to settle down and marry, he said, for
in all Grey's dreams of the future there was always the picture of a
happy home with some fair, sweet-faced girl in it, reigning equally as
mistress with the dear Aunt Hannah, still living her solitary life in
the old farm house, and keeping watch over that hidden grave under the
bedroom floor, and laying up year by year the interest on the gold which
was one day to go to the heirs of Elizabeth Rogers, of Carnarvon, if
they could be found. But could they? That was the question both she and
Grey asked themselves as the years went on and no trace was discovered
of any such person either in or around Carnarvon, for Grey had been
there more than once, and with all due precaution had inquired of
everybody for the woman, Elizabeth Rogers, and finally, as he grew a
little bolder, for Joel Rogers himself, who went to America many years
before. But all to no avail; both Joel and Elizabeth were myths, and the
case was getting hopeless.

Still, Grey did not despair, and resolved that during the holidays he
would go again to the old Welsh town and try what he could do, and so it
came about that he accompanied Neil as far as Carnarvon, where he
proposed to spend a day and then go over to Stoneleigh on Christmas Eve,
more to please Neil, who had urged him so strongly to stop there, than
for any particular satisfaction it would be to him to pass the day with
strangers, who might or might not care to see him. He knew there was a
cousin Bessie, a girl of wondrous beauty, if Neil was to be beli