“You had better beware how you try your fakes on me. You don’t know what magic power I have in this little divining-rod. I will tell you presently to go and look into your strong box and find all your jewels and gold turned to pebbles, and your title-deeds cinders and blank paper.” “Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Floyd-Rosney unpleasantly. “The blind goddess will undertake that little transformation.” His imperious temper could scarcely brook the perception that the coterie regarded the Ducies as restored to the ownership of their ancient estates, even while he stood in the hall of the house he held by the decree of the courts. But Hildegarde did not hear or heed. Bent on her frivolous fun, she brushed past Ducie, holding her divining-rod stiffly in her dainty fingers. Her eyes were alight with laughter as she exclaimed in a voice agitated with affected excitement, “Oh, it’s turning! It’s turning! I shall find silver in one more moment. Oh, Major, Major,” she brought the twig up against the old soldier’s breast. “Here it is--silver--in the Major’s waistcoat pocket!” She fell back against the great newel of the staircase, laughing ecstatically, while all the idle group looked on with amused sympathy, save only the two Floyd-Rosneys. The wife’s face was disconcerted, almost wry, with the affected smile she sought to maintain, as she watched Ducie’s glowing expression of admiration, and the husband’s gravity was of baleful significance as he watched her. “I have found silver! I have found silver! Now, Major, stand and deliver.” As the trembling fingers of the veteran obediently explored the pocket and produced several bits of money, they were hailed with acclamations by the discoverer, till she suddenly espied a coin with a hole in it. “Oh, Major,” she cried, in genuine enthusiasm. “Give me this dime!” “Oh, Hildegarde,”--Mrs. Floyd-Rosney’s face assumed an expression of reprehension, but Mrs. Dean only laughed at the childish freak. “I will have it,--it won’t make or break the Major--I want it--to wear as a bangle, to remind me of this lovely trip, and all that the Major and I have plotted, and contrived, and conspired together. Eh, Major? Oh,--thanks,--thanks,--muchly. You may have the rest, Major.” And she tucked the remaining coins back into his pocket, smiling brightly the while up into his sightless eyes. Randal Ducie, with an air of sudden decision, turned about, seized his brother by the arm and together they stood before the joyous young beauty, who was obviously beginning to canvass mentally the next possibility of amusement under these unpropitious circumstances. “Now, Miss Dean, be pleased to cast your eyes over us. I am not going to allow this fellow to deprive me of your valuable acquaintance.” “Oh, pick me out, Miss Dean,” cried Adrian plaintively. “I am all mixed up. I don’t know if I am myself or my brother.” Miss Dean stared from one to the other, her brilliant eyes wide with wonder.