“Evidently he has come over for Christmas, and it is only just settled,” Paddy ran on. “I am pleased. Dear old Dorrie. He is a barrister, and they met last September, in Scotland. Really, engagements seem to be in the air. First Gwen Carew, then Doreen—and now I wonder who will be the third.” A kind of subdued murmur made her look up quickly, and something about Jack and Eileen caught her attention for the first time. In spite of herself, it sent a little chill to her heart. She folded her letter and sat down on the floor, leaning against Aunt Jane’s lap. “Now,” she remarked, “I’m ready to be told why Jack has come home in this unexpected manner. You don’t any of you seem to have been very communicative so far.” “I like that!” exclaimed Jack, “when you haven’t given anybody a chance to get a word in edgeways all day—but there! you always did monopolise the whole conversation.” “You’ve come back more uppish than ever, Jack,” she retorted. “Anybody would think you had come in; for a fortune at least.” This seemed to tickle them all quite unnecessarily, and Jack burst into a hearty laugh. “You all seem rather easily amused,” said Paddy, “or else I am getting very dense. What is the joke?” “Only that you fired a shot at random and made a bull’s-eye,” laughed Jack. Paddy looked more puzzled than ever, but suddenly she leaned forward and exclaimed: “You don’t mean that you have come in for a fortune, Jack?” “Not exactly,” he answered, “only a trifle of 20,000 pounds.” “_You’ve_ got 20,000 pounds?” incredulously. “Yes. An obliging relative of my mother’s, I had scarcely heard of, died a little while ago and left no other heirs but me.” For a moment Paddy was too astonished to speak, and they all watched her with eager happiness in their eyes. Undoubtedly there was more to come. At last she looked up with a twinkle. “My! if you’d only had it a bit sooner, Jack,” she said, “we might have bought up all the chocolate in Mrs White’s shop, and all the bull’s-eyes, and all the licorice. Goodness! what a feast we would have had.” “We’ll do lots better than that,” he cried. “We’ll have new boats, and new rifles, and new fishing-rods.” “I’m thinking that isn’t quite what brought Jack home after all,” remarked Miss Jane. “Ask Eileen,” said Jack, in a way that made Eileen blush. “What, more secrets!” cried Paddy. “It seems to me you’d better just start at the beginning, and tell me everything that has been going on behind my back in this barefaced fashion.” “Yes, only unfortunately we don’t quite know where the beginning is, do we, Eileen?” “It’s too bad, Paddy, to tease you so,” put in Eileen quickly. “The real truth is that last summer, when you didn’t happen to be at home to see, letters from the Argentine began to come much oftener, and were not handed round for public perusal as usual. And then—You go on Jack,” smiling at him.