"Oh, can you?" laughed Laurence, thinking what a pretty picture she made standing there with the full light of the setting sun tinting the golden waves of her hair, playing upon the great dark eyes. Indeed, he owned inwardly to a weakness, a soft place as strange as it was unwonted, for this child of his. Yet she was something more than a child now, quite a tall slip of a girl at the angular age; but there was nothing awkward or angular even then about Fay Stanninghame. "Well, hitch up the pony to the rail there," he went on. "Those two scamps can take him in when they are tired of careering around and whooping like Sioux on the war-path." The two boys, also happy in the possession of a pony apiece, had lost no time either in learning to ride it. "There's no part of a fool about either of those chaps," said Laurence, more to himself than to the girl, as he watched the two circling at full gallop in and out among the trees, absolutely devoid of fear. "Let's stroll a little, Fay; or would you rather go in?" "Of course, I wouldn't," linking her arm in his. "Father, are we very rich now?" "Oh, pretty warm. Think it fun, eh, child?" "Fun? Why it's heavenly. This lovely place! Oh, sometimes I dream that this _is_ all a dream, and then--to wake up and find it real!" "Well, dear, be as happy as you like now--all day and every day. You have had enough of the other thing to last you a precious long time." They strolled on through the sweet May evening--on beneath a great beech hanger, where cushats cooed softly among the green mast, and the air was musical with the sweet piping of thrushes and the caw of homing rooks. Here and there a gap in the hawthorn hedge disclosed a glimpse of red-tiled roof and farm stack--and nestling among the trees of the park the chimneys of the Hall. Laurence Stanninghame had found this place by a mere chance. He might have purchased it for a third of its value, but he preferred not. Possibly he distrusted the wandering blood within him, possibly he did not lose sight of the fact that where he had found the great diamonds he had certainly left behind many more, to be found or not at some future time. So he rented the house and park, and extensive shooting and fishing rights. No more pinching and scraping now. To the children this change was, as Fay had said, "heavenly." "How do people get rich in Africa, father?" said the latter, as they turned homeward. "In various ways. They find gold mines with no gold in them, and then sell shares in them to a pack of idiots for a great deal of money. Or they perhaps find a few diamonds themselves. Or they trade in all sorts of things--ivory, and so forth." He had stopped to light a pipe; Fay, intently watching his face through the clouds of smoke he was puffing forth, detected a lurking quizzical expression in his eyes, which roused her scepticism. "I never quite know whether you are serious or not, father," she said. "But you never tell us any stories about Africa."