PART TWO. I. Fanny and Roy 228 II. Mrs. Prescott 239 III. Ancestry 246 IV. Inez 256 V. In the Yosemite 268 VI. At Prospect Cottage 275 VII. On the Road to Clark’s 290 VIII. Mark Hilton 300 IX. Mark and Tom 308 X. Inez and Her Father 314 XI. Mark and Helen 320 XII. Fanny and Inez 330 XIII. The Sisters 337 XIV. Roy 343 XV. At the Last 356 XVI. Mark and Tom 363 XVII. In Ridgefield 370 XVIII. Dotty’s Funeral 376 XIX. Odds and Ends 383 THE TRACY DIAMONDS. PART I AND PROLOGUE. CHAPTER I. THE PROSPECT HOUSE. The time was a hot July morning, with the thermometer at 85 in the shade, and rising. Not a leaf was stirring, and the air seemed to quiver with the heat of midsummer. The fog, which, early in the day, had hung over the meadows and the river, had lifted, and was floating upward in feathery wreaths towards a misty cloud in which it would soon be absorbed. Even the robins, of which there were many in the vicinity of the Prospect House, felt the effects of the weather and sat lazily upon the fence or the branches of the trees in which their nests were hidden. Only the English sparrows showed signs of life, twittering in and out of the thick ivy which covered the walls of what had once been a church, and was now used for public offices. It was a morning in which to keep quiet and cool if possible. “The hottest on record,” Uncle Zach Taylor, the proprietor of the Prospect House, said, as he examined the thermometer and wondered “What on earth Dot was thinking of to raise Cain generally in such weather.” The house was in a state of upheaval, and looked as if the annual cleaning was about to commence on a gigantic scale. In the back yard carpets were being beaten by two men, with the perspiration rolling down their faces, on the south and west piazzas furniture of every description was standing,—bureaus and washstands, tables, chairs and couches, with two or three old-time pictures in old-time frames. One was a representation of the famous Boston Tea Party. The Dartmouth, Elinor and Beaver were in close proximity to each other, their decks swarming with Indians breaking open chests and shovelling tea into the water. The others were family portraits,