doctors she interviewed. And then she says to
me--sez my girl Minty--Pop,' she sez, 'he's got nothing to live for now
but his title, and that he never may live to get, so that I think ye kin
jist go, Pop, and fairly and squarely, as a honest man, ask his father
to let me hev him.' Them's my darter's own words, Sir Robert, and when
I tell yer that she's got a million o' dollars to back them, ye'll know
she means business, every time."

"Did Francis know that you were coming here?"

"Bless ye, no! he don't know that she would have him. Ef it kem to that,
he ain't even asked her! She wouldn't let him until she was sure of
YOU."

"Then you mean to say there is no engagement?"

"In course not. I reckoned to do the square thing first with ye."

The halting step of the Baronet crossing the room was heard distinctly.
He had stopped beside Sharpe. "My dear Mr. Sharpe," he said, in a
troubled voice, "I cannot permit this sacrifice. It is too--too great!"

"Then," said Sharpe' s voice querulously, "I'm afraid we must do without
your permission. I didn't reckon to find a sort o' British Jim Bradley
in you. If YOU can't permit my darter to sacrifice herself by marryin'
your son, I can't permit her to sacrifice her love and him by NOT
marryin' him. So I reckon this yer interview is over."

"I am afraid we are both old fools, Mr. Sharpe; but--we will talk this
over with Lady Mainwaring. Come--" There was evidently a slight struggle
near the chair over some inanimate object. But the next moment the
Baronet's voice rose, persuasively, "Really, I must insist upon
relieving you of your bag and umbrella."

"Well, if you'll let me telegraph 'yes' to Minty, I don't care if yer
do."

When the room was quiet again, Lady Canterbridge and James Bradley
silently slipped from the curtain, and, without a word, separated at the
door.

There was a merry Christmas at Oldenhurst and at Nice. But whether
Minty's loving sacrifice was accepted or not, or whether she ever
reigned as Lady Mainwaring, or lived an untitled widow, I cannot
say. But as Oldenhurst still exists in all its pride and power, it is
presumed that the peril that threatened its fortunes was averted,
and that if another heroine was not found worthy of a frame in its
picture-gallery, at least it had been sustained as of old by devotion
and renunciation.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Phyllis of the Sierras, by Bret Harte

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBER