"Our own old butler opened the door to me. I nearly fell upon his neck. The housekeeper, who had known me from infancy, took me up to my room. They wept and laughed, and seemed to look upon my uniform as one of Miss Diana's pranks—half funny, half naughty. Truth to tell, I did feel dressed up, when I found myself inside the old hall again.

"In twenty-four hours, Cousin David, I was installed as the daughter of the house.

"Of Uncle Falcon's remarkable personality, there is not time to tell you now. We took to each other at once, and, before long, he felt it right to put away, at my request, the one possible cause of misunderstanding there might have been between us, by telling me the true reason of his alienation from home, and his breach with my grandfather and my parents.

"Uncle Falcon was ten years younger than my grandfather. My mother, then a very lovely woman, in the perfection of her beauty, was ten years older than my father, a young subaltern just entering the army. My mother was engaged to Uncle Falcon, who loved her with an intensity of devotion, such as only a nature strong, fiery, rugged as his, could bestow.

"During a visit to Riverscourt, shortly before the time appointed for her marriage to Uncle Falcon, then a comparatively poor man with no prospects—my mother met my father. My father fell in love with her, and my mother jilted Uncle Falcon in order to marry the young heir to the house and lands of Riverscourt. Poor mamma! How well I could understand it, remembering her love of luxury, and of all those things which go with an old country place and large estates. Uncle Falcon never spoke to her again, after receiving the letter in which she put an end to their engagement; but he had a furious scene with my grandfather, who had connived at the treachery toward his younger brother; and then horsewhipped the young subaltern, in his father's presence.

"Shortly afterwards, he sailed for America, and never returned.

"Then—oh, irony of fate! After three years of married life, the young heir died, without a son, and Uncle Falcon stood to inherit Riverscourt, as the last in the entail.

"Meanwhile everything he touched had turned to gold, and he only waited my grandfather's decease to return as master to the old home, with the large fortune which would soon restore it to its pristine beauty and grandeur.