which we started."

"Evadne, you talk like a book; go to bed!" Mrs. Orton Beg exclaimed,
laughing.

"It is you who have made me talk, then," Evadne rejoined promptly, "and I
feel inclined to ask now, with all proper respect, what has come to you?
It must be the prince!"

"Yes, it must be the prince!" Mrs. Orton Beg responded, raising her
slender white hand to smother a yawn. "And it must be good-night, too--or
rather, good-morning! Just look at the clock. It is nearly three."




CHAPTER VIII.


The next morning all the guests left Fraylingay, and the family there
settled into their accustomed grooves. Evadne and her father walked and
rode, conversing together as usual, he enjoying the roll and rumble and
fine flavour of his own phrase-making amazingly, and she also impressed by
the roll and rumble. But when it was all over, and he had marched off in
triumph, she would collect the mutilated remains of the argument and
examine them at her leisure, and in nine cases out of ten it proved to be
quartz that he had crushed and contemned, overlooking the gold it
contained, but releasing it for her to find and add exultingly to her own
collection. In this way, therefore, she continued to obtain her wealth of
ore from him, and both were satisfied--he because he was sure that, thanks