air of eager joy. As she saw Lola fling herself upon his breast
and cling there, she winced, and her heart yearned at the sight of a
love which she had somehow failed to win with all her efforts, and
which now she should never win, since Lola was about to leave her
forever.

The hour so long dreaded by Jane seemed surely to have come at
last--the hour of her child's departure. Forth to life's best and
brightest Lola would go, as was meet. Happiness illimitable awaited the
girl she had cherished. It was right that this should be so; yet, alas
for the vast void gray of the empty heart which Lola would leave
behind!

"Well, this is a kind of surprise!" said Mr. Keene, holding his
daughter away for a better sight of her radiant face. "You are taller
than I expected. She's got real Spanish eyes, aint she, Miss Combs?
Like her mother's. The Keenes are all sandy. I'm not sure I'd have
known you, Lola."

"Oh, papa, you've been away so long! You've been kind and good to
me--yet--"

"We'll have to let bygones be bygones," declared her father, gratified
to learn that she had thought him good and kind--for this point had
rather worried him. "I've felt at times as if I hadn't done you just
right."

"Don't say so, papa!"

"Well, I won't," agreed Mr. Keene, willingly. "Only I'm glad to find
you haven't cherished anything against me for leaving you like I did.
When I persuaded Miss Jane to take you, I couldn't foresee what hard
luck I was going to strike, could I?" As he paused he caught Jane's eye
upon him in a significance which he did not understand.

"She doesn't know," said Jane, in a sort of whisper, indicating Lola,
whose back was toward her.

"Doesn't know what?" asked Mr. Keene, unwitting and bewildered. "Of
course she doesn't know all I suffered, what with taking up one
worthless claim after another month in and out--if you mean that! Why,
I actually thought one time of giving up prospecting and settling down
to day's work! Yes'm! It was sure enough that grub-stake you gave me
last Fourth of July that brought me my first luck! I put it right into
Pony Gulch and my pick struck free-milling ore the first blow! Some of
the stuff runs ninety dollars to the ton and some higher. I've already
had good offers for my claim from an English syndicate, but I haven't
decided to sell. Seems queer it should be such a little while ago that
I called you out of that pavilion, Miss Jane, and told you what a fix I
was in! You remembe