It happened, by an odd coincidence, that the mystery of Cecil's parentage was cleared up shortly after Elisabeth's false alarm on that score; and his paternal grandfather was discovered in the shape of a retired shopkeeper at Surbiton of the name of Biggs, who had been cursed with an unsatisfactory son. When in due time this worthy man was gathered to his fathers, he left a comfortable little fortune to his long-lost grandson; whereupon Cecil married Quenelda, and continued to make art his profession, while his recreation took the form of believing--and retailing his belief to anybody who had time and patience to listen to it--that the Farringdons of Sedgehill had, by foul means, ousted him from his rightful position, and that, but for their dishonesty, he would have been one of the richest men in Mershire. And this grievance--as is the way of grievances--never failed to be a source of unlimited pleasure and comfort to Cecil Farquhar. But in the meantime, when the shock of disappointment was still fresh, he wrote sundry scathing letters to Miss Elisabeth Farringdon, which she in turn showed to Christopher, rousing the fury of the latter thereby. "He is a cad--a low cad!" exclaimed Christopher, after the perusal of one of these epistles; "and I should like to tell him what I think of him, and then kick him." Elisabeth laughed; she always enjoyed making Christopher angry. "He wanted to marry me," she remarked, by way of adding fuel to the flames. "Confounded impudence on his part!" muttered Christopher. "But he left off when he found out that I hadn't got any money." "Worse impudence, confound him!" "Oh! I wish you could have seen him when I told him that the money was not really mine," continued Elisabeth, bubbling over with mirth at the recollection; "he cooled down so very quickly, and so rapidly turned his thoughts in another direction. Don't you know what it is to bite a gooseberry at the front door while it pops out at the back? Well, Cecil Farquhar's love-making was just like that. It really was a fine sight!" "The brute!" "Never mind about him, dear! I'm tired of him." "But I do mind when people dare to be impertinent to you. I can't help minding," Christopher persisted. "Then go on minding, if you want to, darling--only don't let us waste our time in talking about him. There's such a lot to talk about that is really important--why you said so-and-so, and how you felt when I said so-and-so, ten years ago; and how you feel about me to-day, and whether you like me as much this afternoon as you did this morning; and what colour my eyes are, and what colour you think my new frock should be; and heaps of really serious things like that." "All right, Betty; where shall we begin?" "We shall begin by making a plan. Do you know what you are going to do this afternoon?" "Yes; whatever you tell me. I always do."