"From what his brother says, this one's more like an avalanche."

Amaryllis laughed scornfully.

"Positively overwhelming!" she said. "But I'm sure I shall never——"

"Hush!" said Caldegard, looking towards the house. "Here's his brother."

Sir Randal was turning the corner of the house, with an envelope in his hand.

"Telegram," said Amaryllis softly. "P'r'aps it's the avalanche deferred."

"D'you mind having lunch half an hour earlier, Miss Caldegard?" asked Sir Randal, as he came up. "Dick—my brother—is coming by an earlier train. Just like him, always changing his mind." And he smiled, as if this were merit.

Caldegard laughed good-humouredly. "You're like a hen with one chick, Bellamy," he said.

"No doubt," said the brother. "Do you see, Miss Caldegard," he went on, sitting beside her, "how the pursuit of science can harden a generous heart? Both Dick and I were born, I believe, with the adventurous spirit. I was pushed into the most matter-of-fact profession in the world, which has kept me tied by the leg ever since. But Dick was no sooner out of school than he showed the force of character to discover the world and pursue its adventures for himself."

"But, Sir Randal, hasn't your brother ever followed any regular occupation or business?"

"As far as I know," chuckled the man, "he's followed most of 'em, and there are precious few he hasn't caught up with. Two years before the war certain matters took me to South Africa. One evening, in the smoking-room of the Grand Hotel at Capetown, a queer-looking man asked if my name was Bellamy, and, when I told him it was, inquired if Limping Dick was my brother."

"Limping Dick?" exclaimed Amaryllis.

"Yes," said Sir Randal. "That was the first time I ever heard the name he is known by from Söul to Zanzibar, from Alaska to Honolulu."

"Why do they call him that?" asked the girl.

The man smiled. "Because he has a limp," he said. "But how he came by it is more than I can tell you. I told the fellow that I 

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