It was four months later, and a turbulent night. The early rains, driven by a strong southwester against the upper windows of the Magnolia Restaurant, sometimes blurred the radiance of the bright lights within, and the roar of the encompassing pines at times drowned the sounds of song and laughter that rose from a private supper room. Even the clattering arrival and departure of the Sacramento stage coach, which disturbed the depths below, did not affect these upper revelers. For Colonel Starbottle, Jack Hamlin, Judge Beeswinger, and Jo Wynyard, assisted by Mesdames Montague, Montmorency, Bellefield, and “Tinky” Clifford, of the “Western Star Combination Troupe,” then performing “on tour,” were holding “high jinks” in the supper room. The colonel had been of late moody, irritable, and easily upset. In the words of a friend and admirer, “he was kam only at twelve paces.” In a lull in the general tumult a Chinese waiter was seen at the door vainly endeavoring to attract the attention of the colonel by signs and interjections. Mr. Hamlin's quick eye first caught sight of the intruder. “Come in, Confucius,” said Jack pleasantly; “you're a trifle late for a regular turn, but any little thing in the way of knife swallowing”-- “Lill missee to see connle! Waitee waitee, bottom side housee,” interrupted the Chinaman, dividing his speech between Jack and the colonel. “What! ANOTHER lady? This is no place for me!” said Jack, rising with finely simulated decorum. “Ask her up,” chirped “Tinky” Clifford. But at this moment the door opened against the Chinaman, and a small figure in a cloak and hat, dripping with raindrops, glided swiftly in. After a moment's half-frightened, half-admiring glance at the party, she darted forward with a little cry and threw her wet arms round the colonel. The rest of the company, arrested in their festivity, gasped with vague and smiling wonder; the colonel became purple and gasped. But only for a moment. The next instant he was on his legs, holding the child with one hand, while with the other he described a stately sweep of the table. “My ward--Miss Pansy Stannard,” he said with husky brevity. But drawing the child aside, he whispered quickly, “What has happened? Why are you here?” But Pansy, child-like, already diverted by the lights, the table piled with delicacies, the gayly dressed women, and the air of festivity, answered half abstractedly, and as much, perhaps, to the curious eyes about her as to the colonel's voice,-- “I runned away!” “Hush!” whispered the colonel, aghast. But Pansy, responding again to the company rather than her guardian's counsel, and as if appealing to them, went on half poutingly: “Yes! I runned away because they teased me! Because they didn't like you and said horrid things. Because they told awful, dreadful lies! Because they said I wasn't no orphan!--that my name wasn't Stannard, and that you'd made it all up. Because they said I was a liar--and YOU WAS MY FATHER!”