nce."

Worth shook her head and the smile in her eyes deepened.

"I don't think he will come," she said. "Mother has told me something
about the Ingelow stubbornness. She says I have it in full measure,
but I like to call it determination, it sounds so much better. No, the
mountain will not come to Mohammed, so Mohammed will go to the
mountain. I think I will walk down to Greenwood this afternoon. There,
dear aunties, don't look so troubled. Uncle Paul won't run at me with
a pitchfork, will he? He can't do worse than order me off his
premises, as you say."

Aunt Charlotte shook her head. She understood that no argument would
turn the girl from her purpose if she had the Ingelow will, so she
said nothing more. In the afternoon Worth set out for Greenwood, a
mile away.

"Oh, what will Paul say?" exclaimed the aunts, with dismal
forebodings.

Worth met her Uncle Paul at the garden gate. He was standing there
when she came up the slope of the long lane, a tall, massive figure of
a man, with deep-set black eyes, a long, prematurely white beard, and
a hooked nose. Handsome and stubborn enough Paul Ingelow looked. It
was not without reason that his neighbours called him the oddest
Ingelow of them all.

Behind him was a fine old farmhouse in beautiful grounds. Worth felt
almost as much interested in Greenwood as in the Grange. It had been
her mother's home for three years, and Elizabeth Ingelow had loved it
and talked much to her daughter of it.

Paul Ingelow did not move or speak, although he probably guessed who
his visitor was. Worth held out her hand. "How do you do, Uncle Paul?"
she said.

Paul ignored the outstretched hand. "Who are you?" he asked gruffly.

"I am Worth Sheldon, your sister Elizabeth's daughter," she answered.
"Won't you shake hands with me, Uncle Paul?"

"I have no sister Elizabeth," he answered unbendingly.

Worth folded her hands on the gatepost and met his frowning gaze
unshrinkingly. "Oh, yes, you have," she said calmly. "You can't do
away with natural ties by simply ignoring them, Uncle Paul. They go on
existing. I never knew until this morning that you were at enmity with
my mother. She never told me. But she has talked a great deal of you
to me. She has told me often how much you and she loved each other and
how good you always were to her. She sent her love to you."

"Years ago I had a sister Elizabeth," said Paul Ingelow harshly. "I
loved her very tenderly, but she married against