lared stoutly. As she spoke a faded crimson
flower fell in her lap.

Somewhat later in the afternoon, Miss Bentley and the Candy Man,
walking together along the river path, had they not been so engrossed
in their own affairs, might have recognised the tall, stooping figure
of the Miser strolling slowly ahead of them. It was for a minute only,
for near a turn in the path he bent forward and disappeared in a thicket
of althea bushes. At this season it was not a dense thicket, and Mr.
Knight, poking in the soft mould with his cane in search of a certain
tiny plant, had no thought of hiding, but, as it chanced, was unobserved
by his friends.

"Oh, Margaret Elizabeth," her companion was saying as they passed, "you
are so dear! I have no business to be telling you so, but indeed I can't
help it."

And she with a little laugh replied: "I am glad you can't, Candy Man."
And the next moment they were gone around the turn.

That was all, but it was enough. What rarer flower was likely to come
the Miser's way, on this or any day?

He stood and looked after them. These two had brought into his grey
life the touch of golden youth. He began to tremble under the force
of a wonderful thought. He sought a bench and sank upon it. It would
be a solution of his problem. He had come out to-day into the spring
sunshine, feeling his burden more than he could bear, for in his pocket
was a letter which put an end to the hope he had long cherished of at
length righting a great wrong.

There must be a way of doing what he wished. The consent of the Candy
Man once gained, that hateful fortune, which through these years had
been slowly crushing him, might become a minister of joy and well being,
might make possible for others those best things of life that he had
missed.

The thought thrilled him. He rose and walked on, back to the pavilion,
where he paused again to rest. There on the step lay the shabby book
with the funny name and the small oval bit cut from the fly leaf,
beneath which was the Candy Man's name, Robert Deane Reynolds.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

_Shows how Mrs. Gerrard Pennington, unhappy and distraught, beseeches
Uncle Bob to help her save Margaret Elisabeth; also how Mr. Gerrard
Pennington comes to the rescue, and how in the end his wife submits
gracefully to the inevitable, which is not so bad after all._

When Mrs. Gerrard Pennington was shown into the room of the Little Red
Chimney, there was nobody there. A chilly