Then he was going home for good to settle down and marry, he said, for in all Grey’s dreams of the future there was always the picture of a happy home with some fair, sweet-faced girl in it, reigning equally as mistress with the dear Aunt Hannah, still living her solitary life in the old farm house, and keeping watch over that hidden grave under the bedroom floor, and laying up year by year the interest on the gold which was one day to go to the heirs of Elizabeth Rogers, of Carnarvon, if they could be found.  But could they?  That was the question both she and Grey asked themselves as the years went on and no trace was discovered of any such person either in or around Carnarvon, for Grey had been there more than once, and with all due precaution had inquired of everybody for the woman, Elizabeth Rogers, and finally, as he grew a little bolder, for Joel Rogers himself, who went to America many years before.  But all to no avail; both Joel and Elizabeth were myths, and the case was getting hopeless.

Still, Grey did not despair, and resolved that during the holidays he would go again to the old Welsh town and try what he could do, and so it came about that he accompanied Neil as far as Carnarvon, where he proposed to spend a day and then go over to Stoneleigh on Christmas Eve, more to please Neil, who had urged him so strongly to stop there, than for any particular satisfaction it would be to him to pass the day with strangers, who might or might not care to see him.  He knew there was a cousin Bessie, a girl of wondrous beauty, if Neil was to be believed, and he remembered to have heard of her, years ago, when he was a boy and first met Neil McPherson at Melrose.  Faint memories, too, he had of hearing her talked about at the memorable Thanksgiving dinner which had preceded his grandfather’s death and his own sickness, when they said he had asked Miss McPherson to send for her and stuff her with mince pie, as a recompense for the many times she had gone hungry to bed because there was not money enough to buy dinner for three.  And all this came back to him as he stood in the station in Carnarvon waiting for the train.

“She must be a young lady now seventeen or eighteen years old,” he thought; “and Neil says she is beautiful.  But I dare say she is like most English girls—­with a giggle and a drawl and a supreme contempt for anything outside the United Kingdom.  I fancy, too, she is tall and thin, with sharp elbows and big feet, like many of her sisters.  I wonder what she will think of me.  People say I am more English than American, which I don’t like, for if there is a loyal son of Uncle Sam in this world I am he.  I can’t help this confounded foreign accent which I have picked up from being over here so long, and I do not know as I wish to help it.  Perhaps it may help me with Miss Bessie, as well as my English cut generally,” and Grey glanced at himself in the dingy little glass to see how he did look.