tiful Princess
and they live happily together ever after.

"You may never care to live at Damory Court. Maybe the life you
will know so well by the time you read this will have welded
you to itself. If so, well and good. Then leave the old place
to your son. But there is such a thing as racial habit, and the
call of blood. And I know there is such a thing, too, as fate.
'Every man carries his fate on a riband about his neck'; so the
Moslem put it. It was my fate to go away, and I know now--since
distance is not made by miles alone--that I myself shall never
see Damory Court again. But life is a strange wheel that goes
round and round and comes back to the same point again and
again. And it may be your fate to go back. Then perhaps you
will cry (but, oh, not on the old white bear's-skin rug--never
again with me holding your small, small hand!)--

"'Wishing-House! Wishing-House! Where are you?'

"And this old parchment deed will answer answer--

"'Here I am, Master; here I am!'

"Ah, we are only children, after all, playing out our plays. I
have had many toys, but O John, John! The ones I treasure most
are all in the Never-Never Land!"

CHAPTER VI

A VALIANT OF VIRGINIA

For a long time John Valiant sat motionless, the opened letter in his
hand, staring at nothing. He had the sensation, spiritually, of a
traveler awakened with a rude shock amid wholly unfamiliar surroundings.
He had passed through so many conflicting states of emotion that
afternoon and evening that he felt numb.

He was trying to remember--to put two and two together. His father had
been Southern-born; yes, he had known that. But he had known nothing
whatever of his father's early days, or of his forebears; since he had
been old enough to wonder about such things, he had had no one to ask
questions of. There had been no private papers or letters left for his
adult perusal. It had been borne upon him very early that his father's
life had not been a happy one. He had seldom laughed, and his hair had
been streaked with gray, yet when he died he had been but ten years
older than the son was now.

Phrases of the letter ran through his mind: "_Sometime, perhaps, you
will know why you are John Valiant of New York instead of John Valiant
of Damory Court.... I can not tell you myself._" There was some tragedy,
then, that had blighted the place,