Clarice Percy had been for some time with her mother in New York, where Paul had joined her. Leaving her mother there with friends, she had come with Paul as far as Worcester, where he stopped, as he had business. Wishing to see an old school-mate in Boston, Clarice had gone on to that city with the understanding that Paul was to look after her baggage, which was checked for Oak City by way of New Bedford, and that she was to join him at the Basin the following day. She was in the best of spirits. The arrangements for her wedding were satisfactorily completed. Her half brother Jack, who was sure to get drunk and disgrace her if he came to her bridal, was out of the way in Denver, or somewhere West, and she had nothing to dread from him. She had an elaborate trousseau in her six trunks, and was very glad to see Paul, and very much flattered with the attention she knew she was attracting as she stood talking to her handsome lover. Elithe could see her face distinctly, and thought how beautiful she was and how different from any one she had ever seen in Samona, and how different from herself in her mussy blue flannel and last year’s hat, with its crumpled ribbons and feathers. It was a very proud face, and the girl carried herself erect and haughty, and glanced occasionally at the people around her, with an expression which said they were not of her world and class. Toward the corner where Elithe sat she never glanced, nor did Paul. In his absorption with his betrothed he had evidently forgotten Elithe, who, after watching him and his companion for a while, half hoping he would speak to her again, turned her attention to the shore and the many handsome houses dotting the cliffs as the boat neared the landing at Oak City. High above the rest, on a slight elevation, she could see the top of what she was sure was the Ralston House, with its big chimney, its look-out on the roof and the tower which had been added when the place was modernized. “That’s the Ralston House,” she thought, wondering if she would ever go there, and thinking with a kind of awe of the smuggler’s room in the cellar, which Sherlock Holmes could not find and the hidden entrance to it in the closet under the stairs. CHAPTER XIV. IN OAK CITY.