“He buys with his eyes open. No one has misrepresented anything,” she added calmly. “He can send an army of factors to look at the estate if he pleases. Pray don’t be a fool, Harry; and when your bread is buttered for you don’t quarrel with it.” Harry did as he was bid. His principles were not very fine, or very strong, but they were the instincts of a gentleman. They were smothered under the unscrupulousness of a woman who had influence over him, as so many of the best feelings and qualities of men often are. Blair Airon was sold to William Massarene; and at the same period many tradesmen in Paris and London who dealt in toilettes, perfumes, jewelry, fans and _lingerie_ were agreeably surprised by receiving large instalments of what was due to them from their customer, Lady Kenilworth. To what better use could barren rocks, and dreary sands, and a dull rambling old house, which dated from James IV. and stood in the full teeth of the north wind facing the Orkneys, have possibly been put than to be thus transmuted into gossamer body linen, and petticoats covered with real lace, and exquisite essences, and fairy-like shoes, with jewels worked into their kid, and court trains, with hand-woven embroideries in gold and silver on their velvet? If William Massarene discovered that he had bought a white elephant he never said so to anyone, and no one ventured to say so to him. All new men have a mania for buying Scotch shootings, and if there was little or nothing to shoot at Blair Airon the fact served for a laugh at the clubs when the purchaser was not present. The purchaser, however, knew well that there were no deer, and that there was scarce fur or feather on the barren soil; he had not bought without first “prospecting”; he was too old a hand at such matters. But he had turned a deaf ear to those in his interests who had drawn his attention to the fact, and he had signed and sealed the transfer of the estate to himself without a protest. Nobody in North Dakota it is true could ever have cheated him out of a red deer or a red cent, but then nobody in North Dakota had ever held that magic key to the entrance of good society which he so ardently coveted. He was prepared to pay very liberally to obtain that key. He was far from generous by nature, but he could be generous to extravagance when it suited him to be so.