Ran went downstairs and rejoined his friends in the morning room, and entertained them with an account of his interview with the bailiff. “My chief reason for asking him to dinner,” concluded the young man, “was that he might be present this evening to assist us in receiving Mr. and Mrs. Gentleman Geff and their esteemed brother and brother-in-law.” At this moment the luncheon bell rang, and the whole party went across the hall to the small dining-room. CHAPTER XXI TWO SCENES Could any member of the party gathered at Haymore Hall have been gifted with clairvoyance, he or she might have witnessed in succession two scenes on that morning of December the 15th, distant, indeed, in space, but near in interest to the household. The first scene was in a greengrocer’s shop in Holly Street, Medge. A tall, spare, gray-haired and grave-looking man, of fifty years or upward, stood behind his counter waiting for morning customers, for it was still early. A blue-coated telegraph boy hurried in, put a blue envelope in his hand, and laid an open book on the counter, saying: “A dispatch, Mr. Legg; please sign.” The astonished John Legg, who had never received a telegram in the half century of his whole life, and now feared that this one must herald some well-merited misfortune to his unloving and undutiful but beloved son or daughter, nervously scrawled his name in the boy’s book and tore open the envelope and read: “HAYMORE, CHUXTON, YORKSHIRE, December 15, 18—. “TO MR. JOHN LEGG, Medge, Hantz: I have just come from America; want to see my niece; am not able to travel. Let her come to me immediately. It will be to her advantage. ANDREW QUIN.” With a gasp of relief that this message was no herald of misfortune, but rather possibly of good fortune, honest John hurried with it into the back parlor, where his wife—a red-cheeked, blue-eyed, brown-haired, buxom woman of forty or more—sat sewing, and said: “Here, Juley! Read this! What does it mean? Who is Andrew Quin?” And he thrust the dispatch into her hand. Her eyes devoured it, and then she answered: “Why, it is from my dear old Uncle Dandy. He went out to the gold fields in California about twenty years ago, and we have never heard from him since. And now he has just come back, and rich as Croesus, of course! And I am the only relation he has in the whole world! And he wants to see me. And he isn’t able to travel. And he may be at death’s door, poor, dear old fellow. John Legg, when does the next northbound train stop here?” “Why, I believe there’s a parliamentary stops here at—let me see—nine o’clock,” answered the greengrocer, slowly collecting his ideas, that had been scattered by the intense excitement of his wife.