at you can walk on a
whole day and not come to the end, and ships, and gold. And the whole of
it's lying idle and waiting for an heir,--and I, Georgie, am the heir."

And Faith told it with cheeks burning and eyes shining, but yet quite as
if she'd been born and brought up in the knowledge.

"It don't seem to move you much, Faith," said I, perfectly amazed,
although I'd frequently expected something of the kind.

"Well, I may never get it, and so on. If I do, I'll give you a silk
dress and set you up in a book-store. But here's a queerer thing yet.
Des Violets is the way Mr. Gabriel's own name is spelt, and his father
and mine--his mother and--Well, some way or other we're sort of
cousins. Only think, Georgie! isn't that--I thought, to be sure, when he
quartered at our house, Dan'd begin to take me to do, if I looked at
him sideways,--make the same fuss that he does, if I nod to any of the
other young men."

"I don't think Dan speaks before he should, Faith."

"Why don't you say Virginie?" says she, laughing.

"Because Faith you've always been, and Faith you'll have to remain, with
us, to the end of the chapter."

"Well, that's as it may be. But Dan can't object now to my going where
I'm a mind to with my own cousin!" And here Faith laid her ear on the
ball of yarn again.

"Hasten, headsman!" said she, out of a novel, "or they'll wonder where I
am."

"Well," I answered, "just let me run the needle through the emery."

"Yes, Georgie," said Faith, going back with her memories while I
sharpened my steel, "Mr. Gabriel and I are kin. And he said that the
moment he laid eyes on me he knew I was of different blood from the rest
of the people"--.

"What people?" asked I.

"Why, you, and Dan, and all these. And he said he was struck to stone
when he heard I was married to Dan,--I must have been entrapped,--the
courts would annul it,--any one could see the difference between us"--

Here was my moment, and I didn't spare it, but jabbed the needle into
the ball of yarn, if her ear did lie between them.

"Yes!" says I, "anybody with half an eye can see the difference between
you, and that's a fact! Nobody'd ever imagine for a breath that you were
deserving of Dan,--Dan, who's so noble he'd die for what he thought was
right,--you, who are so selfish and idle and fickle and"--

And at that Faith burst out crying.

"Oh, I never expected you'd talk about me so, Georgie!" said she between
her sobs. "How could I tell y