one other property you have--that stock--you'll be surprised to see how it'll go down to next to nothing on the street. 'Twon't hurt _me_, you know. As for you, you'll deserve it all, and more, too, for having been a dunderhead!" "I accept the terms," answered Willoughby. "Under the circumstances, they're not even hard. If I fail, I _am_ a dunderhead!--I shall be the first to say it. But I sha'n't fail." (Even at this moment, though he was intensely absorbed, his eye was struck by the contrast between the keen, hard expression of Horace Chase's face and his flower-decked hat; between the dry tones of his voice and the care with which he still held his wife's little dog, who at this instant, after a long yawn, affectionately licked the hand that held him, ringing by the motion the three small silver bells with which his young mistress had adorned his collar.) "If I am to go to California with you next week, I have no time to lose," he went on, promptly. "For I must first go to New York, of course, to see my uncle." "Well, rather!" interpolated Chase. "Couldn't you tell me now whatever I have to know?" Walter continued. "This is as good a place as any. We might walk off towards that house on the right, near the shore; there is no danger of there being any jessamine _there_." Here Ruth appeared. "Haven't you found any more?" she asked, surprised. "Mr. Willoughby, you pretended to be so much interested! As for you, Horace, where is your spirit? I thought you liked to be first in everything?" "First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen," quoted Chase. "Here--you'd better put your monkey in the phaeton," he went on, passing over Mr. Trone. "He has a little rheumatism in his paw. But you must try to bear it." His voice had again its humorous tones; the penetrating look in his eyes had vanished. His wife standing there, adorned with jessamine, her face looking child-like as she stroked her dog, seemed to change the man of a moment before into an entirely different being. In reality it did not do this; but it brought out another part of his nature, and a part equally strong. Ruth had taken off her gloves; the gems which her husband had given her flashed on her hands as she lifted Mr. Trone to her shoulder and laid her cheek against his little black head. "We are going for a short walk, Willoughby and I," Chase said--"over towards that house on the shore. We'll be back soon." "That house is Dalton's," answered Ruth, looking in that direction. "Mrs. Dalton makes the loveliest baskets, Horace; won't you get me one? They are always a little one-sided, and that makes them much more original, you know, than those that are for sale in town." "Oh, it makes them more original, does it?" repeated Chase. When he returned, an hour later, he brought the basket. Walter Willoughby started that night for New York. CHAPTER XII