the fighting Ravenels of days long gone. There was Malcom, who died music-mad; Des Grieux, the one with ruff and falcon, said to be a Romney; and that Francis, fourth of the name (whom the present Francis most resembled), who had lost his life, the story ran, for a queen too fair and fond.

Mrs. Ravenel, adoring and tender, in lavender and old lace, the merriest, gayest, most illogical little mother in all that mother-land of the South, regarded Frank as he re-entered with a blush of pleasure on her bright, fond face.

"Who has the Mainwaring place, mother?" he asked.

"A heavenly person," Mrs. Ravenel answered.

"Man, I suppose," Francis laughed.

Mrs. Ravenel nodded assent and repeated: "Heavenly! An Irishman; with black hair, very black brows, pale like a Spaniard, about thirty—"

"Your own age," Frank interrupted, with a complimentary gesture.

—"who rides like a trooper, drinks half a glass of whiskey at a gulp, and is the greatest liar I can imagine."

"It's enlightening to discover an adored parent's idea of a heavenly person," Francis said, with an amused smile.

"He sends me flowers and writes me poetry. We exchange," she explained, and there came to her eyes a delightfully critical appreciation of her own doings.

"The heavenly person has—I suppose—a name?" Frank suggested.

"Dermott McDermott."

"Has the heavenly person also a profession?"

"He is"—Mrs. Ravenel hesitated a minute—"he is an international lawyer and a Wall Street man."

"It sounds imposing," Frank returned. "What does it mean?"

"I don't know," his mother answered. "I have enough of the artist in me to be satisfied with the mere sound. His English—"

"His Irish," Frank interrupted.

—"is that of Dublin University, the most beautiful speech in the world. He is here in the interest of the Mainwaring people, he says, who want some information concerning those disputed mines. Added 

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