Again Ran took Judy in his arms, folded her to his heart, kissed her fondly and welcomed her home. “And to-morrow, my darling, we shall have to prepare to welcome Gentleman Geff and his—lady. I shall send in the morning for Mr. Campbell and his daughter, that the villain may be confronted with his wronged wife, as well as his betrayed friend,” said Ran, as he gave his arm to Judy to take her down to the dining-room, where dinner waited. CHAPTER XIX WAITING THE ISSUE In the morning Ran and Judy woke up to look, for the first time, by daylight on their new home. Ran opened the windows and let in the light of the December day upon their bedchamber, a vast, peaceful, slumberous room, upholstered throughout in olive green and gold, and looking out upon a park, full of sunny glades and shady groves, even now in winter when the light of day shone down on burnished dry grass in the glades and evergreen trees in the groves. The young couple, though lord and lady of the Manor of Haymore, had as yet neither valet nor maid. So Ran rang no bell, but from a hodful of coal at the chimney corner, with his own hand, replenished the fire in the grate and then went to make his toilet. Judy lay still, with her eyes looking through the large windows on two sides of the spacious chamber, out upon the sunny and shady park until Ran had finished dressing and left the room. Then she arose and took her bath and opened her large sea trunk to find a dress suitable for her morning wear. She finally selected a plain suit of dark gray velveteen, with crimped linen ruffles at the throat and wrists. She put it on and went downstairs. In the hall below she found the wide doors open in front, admitting the winter sunshine, and a great coal fire burning in the broad fireplace in the back; and between the two, near the front of the stairs, Ran, Will Walling, Mike and Dandy standing in conversation. Dandy was the spokesman. “I did think,” he was saying, “that Longman would have come back last night to bring me news of Julie. But, Lord, I do suppose he got so wrapped up into his mother that he clean forgot me and mine, or else, maybe, he could not well get away.” “That was it, Dandy,” said Ran. “Same time, if, as how I had thought it might be so, myself would have gone to the rectory with him. And ’deed I’d agone, anyhow, only I didn’t like to be intruding into a strange place.” “I can’t understand,” said Will Walling, speaking for the first time, “how you fortune-seekers can bear to stay away for years from your native country without hearing a word from any of your friends at home, and then, when you make up your mind to return, and once set foot in your native land, you straightway get into a fever of anxiety and impatience to meet them.” “No more do I, but so it is!” confessed Dandy.