“Thank you, sir,” Francis answered, thoughtfully, “you’re very good; but I don’t care to force myself in among grand folks because I’m rich enough to do as they do. I’ve got a task before me, and it may be a long one.” “A task!” “Yes; I’ve got to look for my cousin.” “Your cousin, Susan Tredethlyn!--the girl whose portrait you showed me?” “Yes, sir. All this money would have been hers, most likely, if she hadn’t done something to turn my uncle against her. I can’t forget that, you see, sir; and the first use I make of the money will be to spend some of it in looking after her.” “Susan Tredethlyn,” muttered Harcourt Lowther,--“Susan Tredethlyn. That portrait you showed me was a very bad one, for I haven’t the least notion of what your cousin is like.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER V. COMING HOME. When the jaded horses of the “Electric” coach from Falmouth stopped before the Crown Inn at Landresdale, in the county of Cornwall, on the 13th of July, 1852, the landlord of the little hostelry was somewhat startled by an event which was of very rare occurrence in those parts. A passenger alighted from the back of the coach, and demanded his portmanteau from the guard,--a passenger who, carrying his portmanteau as easily as if it had been a parcel of flimsy milliner’s ware, walked straight to the little private parlour opposite the bar, and ensconced himself therein. “I shall want my dinner, and a bed, Joseph Penruffin,” he said to the proprietor of the Crown. “You’d better see the coach off, and then you can come and talk to me.” Mr. Penruffin retired aghast and staring. “I don’t know who he _is_, Sarah,” he remarked to a comely-looking woman, who was sitting amongst a noble array of shelves and bottles in a shady little bar that seemed a good deal too small for such a portly presence. “His name’s as clean gone out of my mind as if I’d never set eyes upon him; but I know him, and he knows me, Sarah, for he called me by my name as glib as you please, and his face--Lord bless us and save us!--his face is as familiar to me as yourn.” The passenger who had surprised the Crown Inn from its lazy tranquillity stood at the little window looking out at the coach. The passenger was Francis Tredethlyn, lately a foot-soldier in her Majesty’s service, now a gentleman of landed estate and funded property; but very little changed by the change in his fortune. As he had been independent and fearless in the days when he ruled his life by the orders of other men, so was he simple and unpretending now in the hour of his sudden prosperity. What he had said to his master in the cottage at Port Arthur in the first flush of his new fortunes appeared to be equally true of him now. He did not seem to care about his wealth. He was in no way elated by a change of fortune which would have sent some men into a madhouse.