Roy felt sure he knew, but said nothing, while Mrs. Prescott suggested that the person who found them intended at first to keep them,—then, failing to dispose of them, decided to send them to New York. “Yes, but how did he know where I lived, or that I was to be married to-day?” Fanny asked. Roy tided over that difficulty by saying, “Easy enough, your mother advertised for them to be sent here if they were found, and the man or woman, whoever it is, happened to forward them in the nick of time. Providential dispensation, don’t you see?” He was decking Fanny with the jewels as he talked, and she accepted his theory as she accepted everything from him. “I shall write to father this very day that I have them. He will be so glad, and Tom, too. I dare say the poor fellow has hunted over every foot of ground between that place and Clark’s several times.” Roy’s shoulders always gave a little shrug when Fanny talked in this strain, and he now left her while she wrote a few hurried lines to her father telling him her diamonds had come and asking if he had any idea who sent them. “I am so happy,” she wrote, “for in a few hours I shall be Roy’s wife. I wish you could be here, and Inez. Oh, if she were only alive she would be my maid of honor and eclipse me with her beauty. Dear Inez. It makes me cry every time I think of her up among the mountains with the snow piled over her grave, and I so happy here with Roy. Think of me to-night and bless me, dear father. Mother is to give me away, but I shall fancy it is you. Good bye. Your loving daughter, Fanny Hilton, soon to be Fanny Mason.” Mark read this letter to Tom, who said after a moment, “She is a splendid girl. I don’t think she takes after her mother.” “Or her father, either,” Mark rejoined. “Where does she get her lovely traits of character?” was Tom’s next remark, and for the first time since Inez died a smile broke over Mark’s face, as he replied, “It must be from ’Tina. From all descriptions I have had of that unfortunate lady Fanny looks like her.” “I guess she does,” Tom said, then added, “I am glad the diamonds reached her safely. That chapter is closed and a great weight off my mind. I wonder if Inez knows?” “Of course she does, and is glad as we are,” was Mark’s reply, and the diamonds were never mentioned again between them. Mark was failing, and after he knew the diamonds were safe with Fanny, he began to go down rapidly. “I feel as if I had been broken on the rack until every joint was loosened and every nerve crushed,” he said to Tom. “There is nothing to live for. Inez is dead; I shall never see Fanny again, and it is better so. But I do long for the hills and ponds of Ridgefield and Uncle Zach and Dotty. Do you think they’d be glad to see me? They don’t know what I am. Nobody knows but you and me.” Tom wasn’t so sure about Roy. He believed that young man had his suspicions, and was equally sure he would keep them to himself.