said Tinker, echoing her surprise.

"But--but--where does your horse come from? I know your father can't
afford to keep horses!"

"Sometimes he can," said Tinker. "And if he has had to sell them, a
dozen people will always mount us."

Lady Beauleigh paused; and then she made the last, lavish bid. "And I
would allow you a hundred a year pocket-money. Why--why, you would be
a little Prince!"

"A little Prince! And learn geography! No, thank you!" said Tinker,
startled out of his calm. "Besides," he added carelessly, "I've made
five thousand in the last year."

"Five thousand what?"

"Pounds."

"Come, come," said Lady Beauleigh, shaking her head, "you mustn't tell
me lies."

"It isn't a lie! Tinker never tells lies," broke in Elsie hotly.

"Hold your tongue, you impertinent little minx!" said Lady Beauleigh
sharply. "Who asked you to speak?"

"I think you're a horrid----" said Elsie, and was checked by Tinker's
upraised hand.

"And when I died," Lady Beauleigh went on, turning again to Tinker, "I
should leave you thirty thousand a year--think of it--thirty thousand a
year!"

"It all sounds very nice," said Tinker in a painfully indifferent tone.
"But I'm afraid it wouldn't do."

"Wouldn't do? Why wouldn't it do? To live in a beautiful big house in
the country, and have everything a boy could want! Why wouldn't it
do?" cried Lady Beauleigh, excited by opposition to a feverish desire
to compass the end on which her heart had been set for many months.

"Do you really want to know," said Tinker very gently, but with a
dangerous gleam in his eyes.

"Yes; I insist on knowing!" cried Lady Beauleigh.

"Well," said Tinker slowly, pronouncing every word with a very
deliberate distinctness, "we shouldn't get on, you and I. I don't know
how it is; but I never get on with people who keep shops or banks. I'm
afraid you're not quite--well-bred."

Stout Lady Beauleigh sprang to her feet.

"Ah, well," said Tinker quietly, "you treated my father and mother very
cruelly, you've just said rude things about both of them, and you've
been rude to Elsie. The fact is, I don't see that I want a
step-grandmother at all; and I can't be expected to want an ill-bred
one anyway. So--so--I disown you."

Lady Beauleigh's face quivered with rage; she gathered herself together
as if to box Tinker's ears; thought better of it, and hurried away.

Tinker and Elsie looked at one another, and laughed softly.

"Horrid