The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-12-17

tleman. and think his talk Is most in- teresting" ~
 T don't want his talk" said Sir Walten and don't want him. T will
 not allow isola to become a subject of gossip all round the county. l hear on good authority. that number of Londoners are coming down to pass christmas here this time. and that the
 American millionaire who is going to
 puy up everything round here IS to pc with them; and don't want these peo- pie to imagine that our daughter is going to take up with an obscure artist fellow and to make fool of her. self
 Isola, while these last words were coming from her fathers angry lips, had left the room in tears.
 Rupert Oldcastle had come down to valleldene in the closing days of au- tumn. He had brought some intro auctions from a great London solici- tor, which only spoke of him as a , young man who had travelled much and had taste for landscape paint ing. and. as we have heard already, he had made the acquaintance of General Bellingham in town. Nothing what ever was known against him, and he seemed to spend most of his time In making sketches of all the pictur-- esdue scenery of yalleydene. There was a general impression that he was poor. and he occupied certainly very modest lodging in one of the better houses of the village. It may as well be said at once that he had been great ly attracted by the face and the figure teristics of Isola Claremont from the time of their first meeting at General Bellingham's London house. and the first uncomfortable impression made on the paternal mind of Sir Walter Clarement came from the fact that Rupert Oidcastle's visit to Valleydene followed so quickly on his first meet ing with Isola in London What more natural, Sir Walter thought, than that struggling young artist should get into his head that 1t would be a fine thing for him if he could win the ar fections of a romantic and inexperienc- ed girl, a daughter of the British aris- tocracy. Sir Walter, whose limited means did not enable him to maintain with satisfaction to himself that aris- tocratic rank which he was so proud of possessing, had long made up his mind that the best thing now to hap pen to him and to his house was that his second daughter should marry some man of large fortune. and thus set the flag of the family flying once again.
 He had of late so far modified his pretensions that he would not now have insisted on ancestral rank as one of the indispensable qualifications in his daughters husband. He had scoff- ed contemptuously at the name Of the young artist for the reason that Ru- pert was not a likely person to have any association with an old castle of the ancestral order; but he was coming more and more into the mood of mind which would have dispensed with the ancient palace on condition that the new candidate for his daughters hand could bring with him abundant shek- els of of the tested gold. Sir Walters mind had just now been freshly dis, turbed by the news which he had heard from the London solicitor that the great American millionaire was as vet an unmarried man. This was all that Mir. Eardley. the London solicitor. could or would tell him about the per- sonality of the millionaire; but Sir Walter was given to understand that if the expected visitor should like the place. he would in all probability set tie there, buy up all the available land. and build a palace and create park for himself MT. Eardley further ex- plained that the American did not wish to have his name known as yet, as he much disliked to be made the subject of local gossip and of personal para
  ley did not profess to know very much about the manner in which he had ac- uuired his fortune; but he understood that his luck had consisted in the sud- den good fortune of himself and some few other adventurers in discovering diamond mines where no one else had looked for such hidden treasures.
 Meanwhile the year was drawing towards it's Christmas season. The skies were overhung with masses Of grey darkness. There were some heavy falls of snow, and the soft white covering was lying in picturesque slopes on the side of the hills over looking the sea. The snow in that region was of a peculiar and delicate whiteness, and owing to the softness of the general temperature, the few remains of foliage still to be seen over a. garden wall or by some frozen pool retained even yet something Of their bewitching green. Rupert Oldcastle felt more and more drawn towards the place as he saw it in its Christmas as- pect, With all ms "hhuerls sS through the world. in so many ch- mates, he thought he had never seen anything which seemed to touch hlm. an Englishman born, with sweeter and more tender sense of home and kinship than that limited extent or