I fancied the head of the settlement looked worried when he met me, and he is not very proficient at hiding his feelings." Miss Barrington sighed.

"I am afraid that is nothing very new, and with wheat steadily falling and our granaries full, he has cause for anxiety.

Then the fact that Lance Courthorne has divided your inheritance and is going to settle here has been troubling him." "The first is the lesser evil," said the girl, with a little laugh.

"I wore very short frocks when I last saw Lance in England, and so far as I can remember he had the face of an angel and the temper of a devil.
But did not my uncle endeavor to buy him off, and--for I know you have been finding out things--I want you to tell me all about him." "He would not take the money," said Miss Barrington, and sat in thoughtful silence a space.

Then, and perhaps she had a reason, she quietly recounted Courthorne's Canadian history so far as her brother's agents had been able to trace it, not omitting, dainty in thought and speech as she was, one or two incidents which a mother might have kept back from her daughter's ears.