t Judge Chalmers', I have a feeling all the time that I'm walking
through a stage rehearsal."

The car slackened speed as it slid by a whitewashed cabin at whose
entrance sat a dusky gray-bearded figure. Valiant pointed. "Do you see
him?" he asked.

"I see a very ordinary old colored man sitting on the door-step,"
Katharine replied.

"That's Mad Anthony, our local Mother Shipton. He's a prophet and
soothsayer. Uncle Jefferson--that's my body-servant--insists that he
foretold my coming to Damory Court. If we had more time you could have
your fortune told."

"How thrilling!" she commented with half-humorous irony.

He pointed to a great white house set in a grove of trees. "That is
Beechwood," he told her, "the Beverley homestead. Young Beverley
was the Knight of the Silver Cross. A fine old place, isn't it? It
was burned by the Indians during the French and Indian War. My
great-great-great-grandfather--" He broke off. "But then, those old
things won't interest you."

"They interest you a great deal, don't they?" she asked.

"Yes," he admitted, "they do. You see, my ancestors are such new
acquaintances, I find them absorbing. You know when I lived in New
York--"

"Last month."

He laughed a little--not quite the laugh she had known in the past.
"Yes, but I can hardly believe it; I seem to have been here half a
lifetime. To think that a month ago I was a double-dyed New Yorker."

"It's been a strange experience for you. Don't you feel rather
Jekyl-and-Hydish?"

"That's a terrible compound!" he laughed, as he swept the car round a
curve, skilfully evading a bumping wagon-load of farm-hands. "In which
capacity am I Mr. Hyde, by the way?"

She smiled at him round the edge of her blown veil. "Figures of speech
aren't to be analyzed. You are Dr. Jekyl in New York, anyway. You read
what the papers said? No? It's just as well; it would have been likely
to turn your head."

"Could anything be as likely to do that as--this?" With a glance he
indicated her presence beside him.

She made him a mocking bow. "Be careful," she warned. "Speeches like
that smack of disloyalty to your queen. What a pretty girl she is! I
congratulated you on your prowess. I must add my congratulations on your
taste."

He returned her bow of a moment since.

"It was all a most unique thing," she went on. "And to-night at your
ball I shall witness the coronation. I can hardly wait to see Damory
Court. Do you know, in all these years I n