Her home for a number of years had been in New York city, her mother, as we know, having changed her residence at the time that Mr. Knight decided to come East to establish himself in business. Mrs. Alexander had used her pen during all this time, giving her friend one or two little gems of art every year, for it was a pleasant pastime for her to employ herself in this way, but her chief thought had been given to the education of her daughter, who proved to be bright and intelligent beyond the average nineteenth century girl. She had graduated from one of the select schools of the city during the summer just passed, and her mother had begun to contemplate taking her abroad when spring should come again, with the intention of demanding her right at Heathdale. Still, as the time gradually drew nearer, she had shrunk more and more from the task before her, until the constant dread of it had begun to affect her health, and she had been far from well during the last few months. Mr. Knight and his sister had never visited San Francisco since leaving that city, although they had often talked of doing so. But this winter, when they learned of the Raymond excursion to that and other points on the Pacific coast, they proposed to join it, and invited Mrs. Alexander and her daughter to accompany them. She did not feel equal to either the weariness or the excitement of the journey; but she thought that it would be a good opportunity for Virgie to visit the far West, and she gladly confided her to the care of her friends for the two months that the trip would occupy, and thus we find her in company with Mr. and Mrs. Knight, bound for the State where her mother had been born, and as fate had strangely ordered it, with the very party which Sir William Heath’s ward, Rupert Hamilton, had joined. CHAPTER X. MR. AND MISS KNIGHT VERSUS CUPID. The ice once broken between Mr. Knight’s party and the two young men, the acquaintance progressed rapidly, and it soon became evident that Rupert and Virgie found each other especially congenial. The young Englishman managed to constitute himself the beautiful girl’s escort upon almost every occasion when they were sight-seeing, until Mr. Webster began to realize that he was _de trop_, or as he humorously expressed it, but the “fifth wheel to the coach,” and he was forced to look about him for other society to soothe his wounded pride. He soon found it in the companionship of two sisters, who were traveling with an aunt, and the dark eyes and sparkling beauty of the elder ere long bade fair to make as much a captive of him as Virgie had already made of Rupert Hamilton.