roads and rugged steeps--the wandering
streams and sound of falling waters.

He saw it all again, the blossoming spring where Cassandra sat waiting
for him, and he resolved to start without delay--to go to her and bring
her back with him. All this sordid calculation of the amount of his
fortune--his mother's and sister's shares--the annuities of poor
dependents--stocks to be bought--interest to be invested--the
government, and his future part therein, pah! It must wait! He would
have his own. His heritage should not be his curse.

He returned in haste that day, only to learn that certain facts had been
unearthed which necessitated a journey into Wales, where interests of
the former Lady Thryng's estates were concerned. His uncle had inherited
all from her with the exception of certain bequests to relatives with
which he had been intrusted. Some of the records had been lost, and
whether the beneficiaries were dead or not, none knew, but now and then
letters came pleading for a continuance of former favors, and recalling
obligations.

Mr. Stretton had been ill for a week, and now that the records were
found, David must go, and go at once. The lawyer had many subjects for
investigation to deliver to David. There was the death-bed request of an
old nurse of his aunt, who had an annuity, that it be extended to her
crippled granddaughter. She lived among the Cornish hills. Would he hunt
the family up and learn if they were worthy or impostors? His uncle had
been endlessly plagued with such importunities--and so on--and so on.

Yes, certainly David would go. He made a mental reservation that he
would sail, without returning to London, and then make a clean breast of
his affairs by letter to his mother. She had improved in health during
the winter, and he thought his information would be received by her with
more equanimity than it would have been earlier. Moreover, she had
broached the subject of marriage to him more than once, but always in
one of her most worldly moods, when he shrank from hearing Cassandra
spoken of as he knew she would be--when he could not hear her discussed,
nor reply with calmness to such questions as he knew must ensue.

David had little time to brood over his peculiar difficulty, as his
short journey was full of business interest and new experiences. Yet the
Cornish hills awoke in him a still greater eagerness for the mountains
of his dreams, and, after securing his passage, he went to his hotel t