“The good meal he could have, certainly; but did the stranger know that it was thirty odd miles to the city, and if he was intending to go there, he’d better go by train--they had just finished the new road, and intended to make the initial trip that afternoon.” Raymond Challoner was overjoyed at this piece of news--evidently the conductor of the train he had so lately left did not know of this. “You will have two good hours to wait here, sir,” went on the landlord; “but we can make you comfortable, I reckon.” While Challoner was doing justice to the fried chicken and bacon, the fine mealy potatoes, the gingerbread, honey and home-made bread which was set before him, his curiosity concerning the girl whom he had encountered in the lane a mile up the road got the better of him, and he asked who she was. He also related the story of his experience, which accounted for his appearance there on foot. The landlord laughed uproariously, as he listened. “That was Jess you fell in with,” he answered, “and bless you, sir, it was as much as your life was worth to abuse--correct, I mean--any animal, from a mouse to a horse, in her presence.” “And who, pray, is Jess?” queried the handsome young stranger, with a cynical smile, as he followed his host from the dining-room out to the barroom, depositing himself in one of the very comfortable rush-bottomed chairs. It was not every day that the loquacious landlord of the Greenville hostelry had a stranger to gossip with, and he proceeded to unbosom himself at once upon the subject which had always had so much interest for him, because it was shrouded in a mystery. “Who is Jess?” he repeated, blowing a great puff of smoke from the short corncob pipe he has just lighted; “well, that’s what every one around here would like to find out,” and then he proceeded to tell the stranger the story of the late owner of Blackheath Hall; of the appearance of the girl Jess there, brought in her infancy one stormy night, and by the master’s orders, by the woman who spoke no language save that of a foreign tongue, and she had been allowed to grow up like the weeds about the place--a wild thing, cared for by nobody--and last, but by no means least, of the wonderful will, which the New Orleans lawyer had come up to the village to read to the members of the household of Blackheath Hall, that the great fortune of its owner was to go to the nephew who survived him, on the condition that he marry Jess, and every one was waiting to see what view the heir presumptive, Mr. John Dinsmore, of New York, would take of the matter--whether he would wed the girl for the fortune that would be his with her, or refuse the Dinsmore millions on that account. His host was so busy with his story that he did not notice the violent start his guest made as the name of John Dinsmore fell upon his amazed ears. He almost wondered if his sense of hearing was playing him false.