"Oh, you never could make a fool of yourself," murmured her friend. Then, as Victoria showed signs of relapsing into silence, she plunged in recklessly; "Jack is bound to be elected. When has he ever failed to get what he wanted? But you, Vicky dear—is there anything wrong? You had a bulky letter from California the day I arrived. I do hope that tiresome property is not giving you trouble. What a pity it is such a long way off."

"The San Francisco lease runs out shortly. Half of that, and the southern ranch, are my only independent sources of income. The northern ranch belongs to Jack. All three are getting less and less easy to let in their entirety, my agents write me, and I feel half a pauper already."

"This is not so bad," murmured Flora.

"Strathland would bundle me out in ten minutes if anything happened to Jack."

"It would be a pity; it suits you." She was not referring to the hall, which was somewhat too light and small for the heroic mould of its chatelaine, but to the noble proportions of the old house itself, and the treasures that had accumulated since the first foundations were laid in the reign of Henry VI. There were rooms hung with ugly brocades and velvets never duplicated, state bed-chambers and boudoirs sacred to the memory of personages whose dust lay half-forgotten in their marbles; but above all, Capheaton was famous for its pictures. Not only was there an unusually large number of portraits by masters scattered about the twenty rooms that lay behind and on either side of the hall, but many hundreds of those portraits and landscapes from the brushes of artists fashionable in their day, unknown in the annals of art, but seeming to emit a faint scent of lavender and rose leaves from the walls of England's old manor-houses and castles. In the dining-room there was a full-length portrait of Mary Tudor, black but for the yellow face and hands and ruff; and another, the scarlet coat and robust complexion still fresh, of the fourth George, handsome, gay, devil-may-care; both painted to commemorate visits to Capheaton, historically hospitable in the past. But Lord Strathland, besides having been presented with six daughters and an heir as extravagant as tradition demanded, was poor as peers go, and had more than once succumbed to the titillating delights of speculation, less cheering in the retrospect. Having a still larger estate to keep up, he had been glad to lend Capheaton to his second son, who, being an excellent manager and assisted by his wife's income, had lived very comfortably upon its yield. Upon his death Elton Gwynne had 

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