Τ

HE fresh, warm air of early summer was rustling the leaves through the orchards of the Santa Clara Valley, making them audible as well as visible, turning the green aside to reveal the glistening red of the ripening cherries, or exposing to the sun the growing peaches and pears and prunes and apricots that were to be sought out by only the sharpest

eye.

Thomas Golightly gave a nod of approval as he turned his horse from the dusty highway into one of the orchards and guided the buggy into the road that ran between the well-kept rows of trees. He was a lawyer and a city man, but he held the theory that admiration of country life was a duty that man owed to society. Furthermore, he had a professional interest in the property over which he was driving, and he reached the house in a most amiable frame of mind.

"Good morning, Silas," said Mr. Golightly, deliberately, as he reined up his horse at the steps, and a young man in his shirt-sleeves hastened forward to assist him. "Another fine day."

"Yes, it's fine a little too fine. We've been put back so that a few cloudy days would be a blessing. We need a chance to catch up with the work."

"Ah, yes; sickness and death and funerals do interfere with our avocations. But they have the first lien on our time, even if the rest of nature refuses to wait for them. I believe that what brought your uncle the most serious regret when he knew he was to die was the circumstance that the King of Terrors should be so inconsiderate as to come at the busiest time of the year."

"Yes," assented the young man. was telling Pete this morning that I thought it hastened his end mightily-his fretting over the time we had to take from the work in looking after him."

"Pete? Pete?" said the lawyer inquiringly.

"I mean Miss Stannard," said the young man apologetically. "It was one

of Uncle Jacob's freaks-the name you know."

"Ah, yes. I remember now that he did mention the name more than once, but it had escaped my mind that it referred to the young lady. This is a beautiful view of the valley from here, is it not? The green of the orchards and the background of the mountains beyond are very impressive to a lover of nature. Your uncle was a very strange man about some thingsespecially about the ladies."

Yes. Take the big chair by the window there if you like to look out. Uncle Jacob did n't take any stock in the women-folks. He never would have one of 'em on the place before Pete came-I mean Miss Stannard. He wouldn't even have a married man about."

"I remember," said Mr. Golightly, "it must have been ten or twelve years ago now, when Jacob Davenant first told me that he had a little niece left him to care for. I can see now the shamefaced air with which he gave the information and asked that I would see to getting her out here and put her into a boarding-school. I did attend to the matter, but the cost of a boarding-school education astounded him."

"I should think likely," said Silas grimly. "He wasn't what you would call free-handed about such matters."

Mr. Golightly smiled gravely. A dead client was not a subject for a jest, but the thought excused a shadow of professional amusement.

"Hardly, hardly," he replied. "Indeed, he said to me, 'Why, Mr. Golightly, that would pay the wages of two of the best men on the ranch.' So he took the little girl out here as the least of the evils that hedged him about. I fancy he grew rather fond of her in time, though he would be the last one to have said so.'

"Well," said Silas, "he got to be fonder of her than anything else but his money, and for a fact he spent more of that on her than you would guess. But it was a bitter pill for him to swallow when he

brought her here. He was furious about her name, it's Aprilla, you know,Aprilla Stannard. He insisted on calling her Pete,' to make it seem that she was n't a girl. Then when she had been here about a year he got a panic about her being the only one of her species on the ranch-she was getting toward fourteen and was pretty handy about the house. So he sent back to Ohio for Mrs. Sandridge, his cousin, you know."

"Ah, yes; our amiable but precise friend whom I have had the pleasure of meeting on occasion."

"Uncle made her keep out of his sight most of the time, and I don't suppose he spoke two dozen words to her in the year. But he seemed satisfied to have her here because of P-Miss Stannard."

The lawyer looked out on the glistening orchard and crossed his legs.

"But I did n't come out from San José to gossip about your uncle's peculiar views," he said, at length. "There is a There is a little matter of business to be attended to, and with your good permission I will ask you to call Miss Stannard."

Silas disappeared, and Mr. Golightly communed with nature once more. And when the charms of the scene began to pall on him, he brought out his eye-glasses and a packet of papers.

Silas, on returning, announced that "She'll be in directly, sir," and was followed a moment later by the young woman herself.

Aprilla Stannard looked very charming in Mr. Golightly's eyes as she entered the door in her simple dress, with a halfscared look on her face. She was a pretty girl of good figure and a bright rosy complexion, and Mr. Golightly was willing to risk a professional opinion that she was worth admiring. He rose and bowed with all the courtesy of the old-school gentle

man.

"The charm of the morning is heightened by the privilege of looking upon you, Miss Stannard."

"Thank you, sir," said Aprilla looking a shade annoyed. Aprilla was of a practical mind and objected to shams, under which head she classed Mr. Golightly's compliment.

Mr. Golightly bore a slight resemblance

to Daniel Webster-a resemblance in which he took much pride and cultivated to the best of his ability. He now became as Websteresque as possible and drew a chair up to the table.

"My dear young friends," he said, "I am here on a little matter of business connected with your uncle's estate. I have in my hand your uncle's will."

Silas looked uncomfortable and Aprilla nodded gravely.

"You have not unjustifiably had, I doubt not, some-er-expectations. I am happy to assure you that they may now be realized."

"We expected that Uncle Jacob would do as much for us as for anybody," said Silas, drawing a long breath, and Aprilla nodded gravely again.

Quite right, quite right," said Mr. Golightly. "Aside from some trifling be quests to other relations, the property is left to Silas Davenant and Aprilla Stannard, in equal shares."

Both the listeners gave a slight gasp, and Aprilla's eyes flashed with a pleasure that she did not allow to appear on her face.

There are, however, conditions—a condition, I should say," continued Mr. Golightly slowly. "The bequest is to be enjoyed only while you remain single. On the marriage of either, the whole estate vests at once in the other."

"Oh!" gasped Aprilla, and then she shut her lips tightly as though she was afraid she would say something that had better be left unsaid.

Silas laughed a little.

"That is n't such a hard condition."

"Hum!" said the lawyer. "Then I judge that you have not been afflicted with the tender passion."

Silas laughed again.

"Not I," he said. "I have n't seen the woman yet I should care to marry." Aprilla looked a little resentful at this, and then smiled gaily.

"You see he has been kept close to the ranch. Uncle has depended on him as manager, and he has seen no one and been nowhere." There was a touch of malice in her tone.

Mr. Golightly, with a bow, accepted the explanation.

66

Well, he will now be able to change all that. Your uncle's property includes not only this ranch and the other places hereabouts, which you are doubtless informed of, but there are bonds, stocks, and mortgages enough to bring the total above five hundred thousand dollars."

And thereupon Mr. Golightly went into a long description of the estate of the late Jacob Davenant, and furnished more information than his listeners could well absorb at one sitting.

"By the way," he said, as he rose to take his leave," there is a bare chance that you could break your uncle's will in regard to that condition. It was very carefully drawn, and I think it will hold. However, I don't advise on that point. I explained to Mr. Davenant on drawing the will that the law does not favor restraints on marriage; but he declared that it did not matter, that his will would be enough. You would accept the property with the condition or not at all."

"Of course," said Silas, "the money was his, and he could do as he pleased with it, and we don't have to take it if we don't like the conditions. But I guess we can stand 'em."

Mr. Golightly smiled a dry smile that might have been interpreted to mean that the young man would have a different opinion some day. And with his most majestic Websterian manner he made his parting compliments to Aprilla, climbed into his buggy, and drove down the road toward San José.

"Well Pete, that is n't so bad," said Silas, seating himself on the topmost step of the veranda as Mr. Golightly was swallowed up in a retreating cloud of dust.

Aprilla leaned against the awning-post and looked thoughtfully into vacancy. "No," she said; "Uncle Jacob has been very generous."

"It's a big pot of money," continued Silas. "But I never thought of his putting such a condition on it. I did n't think he would carry his dislike of marriage beyond the grave with him."

"I dare say," said Aprilla smiling, "that if he could have abolished women and marriage at the stroke of the pen he would have been happy. Dear me! I suppose I sha'n't be 'Pete' any longer,

now that there is no one who has to try to deceive himself into thinking of me as a boy."

O, you'll be Pete to me,. I suppose, to the end of time, and you 're Miss Stannard now to everybody else except Aunt Sandridge."

"I say, Pete," he continued, "I've often wondered why Uncle Jacob had such a dislike for women."

"Don't you know?" said Aprilla, suddenly sitting down with a show of lively interest, and a shadow of awe in her voice, "neither did I until yesterday, when Aunt Sandridge told me.'

"You don't suppose I tackled Uncle Jacob with the question, do you Pete?" said Silas, with a grim twinkle in his eye.

"No; of course not. You'd be worse off than Daniel in the lion's den if you did. Aunt Sandridge never gave a hint of it while uncle was alive. She would n't have dared to whisper it into the ground, like the fellow in the story that told the secret of King Midas's ears."

"Well, fire away! Let's hear it," said Silas looking interested.

Aprilla hesitated a moment, and then began slowly and softly: "Uncle Jacob was cruelly wronged, and by a woman. It was back in Ohio, more than thirty years ago, before you or I were born. He fell in love, and the girl promised to marry him. They all thought that she loved him as he loved her. She was said to be beautiful, and had the ways that charm men. They were to be married with a grand wedding, for that place,-for Uncle Jacob was well-to-do for a young man. A week before the day set for the wedding they went to a dance together. Aunt Sandridge was there, and all the young people of the country had come. Just about midnight this girl slipped away from uncle's side, and when he asked for her she was nowhere to be found. Then they learned that she had driven away with a married man of the town, who left wife and children to go with her. There were some who started to follow them, but Uncle Jacob went home as though nothing had happened. But it was found that he would never speak to a woman from that day. The only one he was known to have a word with there was his own sister-my

mother, you know. After a little he sold out his property and came to California. The rest you know." Silas nodded.

"He was hard hit, but he did his best to get even."

"Yes," said Aprilla; "he tried to revenge himself on all women for the wrong that one had done him. But we two should be the last to say that he was lacking in heart."

"Well," said Silas reflectively, "as for affection, I really never thought of his having any more than this post."

"O, Silas, how can you?" cried Aprilla impulsively, with tears in her voice. "Where would we two orphans have been if he had been without heart? Did he not take you when you were a wee boy, left alone in the world? Was he not the only father you ever knew? Did he not break his vow to himself to care for me when I must have begged or starved? Did he not give us clothes and education? " "We've had to do some pretty hard work for our board and clothes, Pete," said Silas.

"Just the training we needed," said Aprilla fiercely. "I'm sure Uncle Jacob loved us dearly, even if he did try to convince himself and everybody else that he did n't. You told me yourself that he pined for me all that year I was away teaching school, and he just forced me to invite myself back."

"Don't get excited, Pete," said Silas, smiling at her earnestness. "Uncle Jacob was n't so bad as he let on, of course, and he's made it up with his fortune condition and all."

"Yes; that was horrid of him," said Aprilla. "But I suppose you'll try to break the condition when you get a good ready."

"No, indeed," said Silas stoutl "There is n't a woman on the earth that I want to marry, Pete. Even if I could break the will, I would n't. It's our bargain with uncle, and I'll keep it."

"Yes; it's a bargain," said Aprilla quietly, looking at him intently. Then she suddenly rose to her feet. "Anyhow," she continued rapidly, "Uncle Jacob was a dear good old polar bear, and you 're just as mean as you can be to say or think anything against him. So there!" And

stamping her foot, she rushed into the house.

Silas looked at this outbreak in mild surprise, and after considering it a moment put on his hat and started for the barn.

"Pete's got as good sense as any of 'em," he thought; "but I guess the best of 'em are a little light in the upper story. Like enough, Uncle Jacob was right about 'em after all."

II.

Thomas Golightly sat in his office in a most un-Websterian attitude. His feet were on his desk and his eyes were buried in the copy of the California Reports that he held in his hand. The day outside was dull. The first December rain had come, and though the morning had broken fair, it was again overcast. The damp south wind was blowing, and the masses of clouds were hurrying toward the north as though they were the cavalry of the sky hastening forward to expected battle.

But Mr. Golightly minded not the storm-clouds without, and it was not until the respectful clerk had twice made the announcement, "A lady to see you, sir," that he looked up from his reading.

He hastily lowered his feet from the desk. The lady, instead of waiting without, had followed the clerk, and Mr. Golightly was pained at the discovery of his position. He rose, wrapped in a double thickness of dignity-even such dignity as he usually reserved for his arguments before the Supreme Court-for Mr. Golightly felt an inward tingle of shame and vexation that a lady should have seen him sitting with his boots as high as his head. For, although this attitude is good for the faculties of reflection, it is not dignified.

Mr. Golightly bowed stiffly, and motioned the lady to a chair.

"O, Mr. Golightly!" said the lady, and then stopped. At the words Mr. Golightly unbent and saw what his inward confusion had prevented him from seeing at first.