amassed an immense fortune. Then he got into a fairy chariot,
together with a bag of gold and the family lawyer, and ordered the
coachman to drive him to Lord George Willoughby's in Curzon
Street. Then they sent out in hot haste for Sir George's son, an
awfully fast young man in the Guards, and the family lawyer
haggled and haggled, and Lord George hemmed and hawed, and the
Guardsman's eyes sparkled with greed at the sight of the bag of
gold, and finally for two hundred thousand pounds (Papa says he
often thinks he could pull it off for a hundred and ten thousand)
the entail is broken and everybody signs his name to the papers
and the poor young man buys the succession of Fyles and comes down
here, regardless of expense, in a splendid gilt special train, and
is received with open arms by his kinsmen at the castle."

"The open arms appeal to me," I said.

"He was nearly hugged to death," said Verna, "for they were so
pleased the old name was not to die out and be forgotten. And then
the poor young man married a ravishing beauty and had troops of
sunny-haired children, and the daughter of the castle (who by this
time was an old maid and quite plain, though everybody said she
had a heart like hidden treasure) devoted herself to the little
darlings and taught them music-lessons and manners and how to
spell their names with a little f, and as a great treat would
sometimes bring them up here and tell them how she had first met
the poor young man in the 'diamond mornings of long ago'!"

"That's a good fairy story," I said, "but you are all out about
the end!"