ard, Oregon.

"Oh, sir!" she exclaimed, flitting up to Nick. "P'raps you don't remember
me, but I'm maid to Mrs. May, and 'twas to me you gave that beautiful bag
you said you'd throw out o' window if I didn't take it. Ye don't mind if I
sold it, do ye?"

"Of course not," Nick assured her. "I gave it to you for that."

"I thought so, sir; and I've done fine with it to-day. A gentleman named
Barrymore, who keeps a smart jewellery shop, paid me five hundred dollars.
I'm all in a flutter, sir! Just to think, it's the same as if you'd give
me the money."

"Not a bit of it," said Nick. "Some cow might have swallowed the bag by
this time if you'd let me chuck it out of the car window. Or a goat,
maybe."

"Well, thank you again a thousand times. And what with you, and my lady,
Mrs. May, I'm the happiest girl in the wurruld." And Kate tripped away to
post her letter.

"'My lady, Mrs. May,'" echoed Nick, beneath his breath. "She's _my_ lady,
too--my angel--though she doesn't know it. And nothing can change that
till doomsday."

He had hated the gold bag when it was rejected by Angela; but now he felt
differently. His heart warmed toward it. Had it not been hers, if only for
a little while? It had hung on her wrist. It had been in her hand. It had
held her lace handkerchief, which smelled like some mysterious flower of
fairyland. Now he knew what he had come to learn, there was nothing to
keep him any longer; and, walking out of the hotel, he asked the first
intelligent-looking man he met where to find Barrymore's.

"A young lady in black, in a blue auto, sir, bought the bag you must have
seen in the window," he was presently informed by the youth who had served
Angela. "A young lady with golden hair. You might almost have met her on
the way."

"I rather think I did meet her," drawled Nick. And though the bag was gone
forever, he was suddenly so happy that he could have sung for joy. He
hurried away to telegraph Henry Morehouse, at Doctor Beal's Nursing Home,
asking a favour which he was sure Morehouse would grant, because they had
grown very friendly on the journey East. Next, he called at the largest
garage in Los Angeles, and asked advice of the manager about buying a
motor-car. "You wrote me in the winter, saying you had a fine one here to
dispose of," he said. "Maybe you remember?"

Remember? Why, of course, the manager remembered Mr. Hilliard! Every one
had been talking of his Lucky Star gusher.

Nick laughed.