"Oh!—Miss Worth!" ejaculated the girl with a noticeable catch in her voice. "My grandfather—you-all can't mean that Colonel Tennytown is my really grandfather?" she pressed hastily, overwhelmed by this unlooked-for surprise.

"Yes, truly—Colonel Tennytown is your own grandfather, Belle-Ann, and I am happy and proud that you have such a man for your grandfather—he is going to come and claim you, my dear, and you are not to rebel when he tells you about your legacy—you have an inheritance—it is rightfully yours by every moral and legal tenure—it was your mother's—although her proud, relentless temperament spurned it while she lived. It now devolves upon you, Belle-Ann; you have been rich all along and did not know it—money matters need never trouble your dear little head. You recall that first visit to Lexington? Well, we took you out to the Colonel's home purposely for his maiden sister to see you. You know they wanted to be sure of you, Belle-Ann,—they wanted to feel certain, dear, that they would like you. And dear old Miss Malinda was more than charmed with your beauty and personality—she confided to me afterwards that she begged the Colonel to go directly and bring you there to live permanently. Belle-Ann, you look like you do not believe this good fortune," she ended abruptly.

Out of a daze the girl awake, and impulsively threw her arms around Miss Worth and kissed her until she laughingly protested. As Belle-Ann dressed for breakfast, she pondered upon the ways of Providence and wondered what unseen happening would come next to take its place in her life. She moved about in a state of bewilderment. She struggled to compose herself; this great good luck thrust upon her so suddenly seemed visionary. She, whose life heretofore had been lonesome and isolated, and overshadowed with unhappiness.

This abrupt intervention of a kind fate bore the atmosphere of a fairy romance. It was difficult to comprehend off-hand, that all this was meant for her. So that it was only gradually that she gathered the grace of its realization, and then her fancy waxed busy. A glamorous vista of possibilities were opened up to her. She saw before her salient, new-born contemplation, scores of day-dreams that had invaded her girlhood, resolve themselves now into a semblance of approaching tangible realities.

With superb, delicate touches she added to these mental pictures with the prolific imagery and exquisite mastery that only a vivacious, high-spirited girl can conjure. And paramount above all these fantastic castles were the benefits set aside to be bestowed upon Lem and Buddy and her father and even poor old Slab—they who had been fellow-sufferers in a war of strife and aching misery that had seemed interminable.

With the tail of her eye, Belle-Ann caught a parting glimpse of her profile in the mirror. She noted with a little laugh that her lips were moving. All unconsciously she was repeating over and over the phrase that drifted to and fro through her half-incredulous mind:

"A grandfather—an inheritance—Belle-Ann Benson—with a legacy?"

Colonel Tennytown, who had been called to New York on business, had now returned to Lexington. To-day, when Miss Worth returned to the school she imparted to Belle-Ann that she had received a message from the Colonel stating that he would be up to see them in the evening. He had been absent for two weeks and Belle-Ann had not seen him since she had learned that he was her grandfather.

With a lingering, tender embrace, twilight untwined her nebulous arms from the sable-lustre mantle of night and parted with a promise.

The tryst place had been the dim, infinite dome of the world. Plenipotent, majestic night settled on the throne of the supernal cosmos, diademed with a million twinkling jewels to dazzle his mundane subjects. His ancient serfs, patrolling the heavens at his behest, all a-glitter, trembled in his presence. And between the limits of these fire-touched planets, the milky-highroad developed like a mystic wand leading across a vast ethereal universe, and trailing adown into immeasurable cyclopic spaces, fading away between the gigantic vapor-tombs and ghost biers of a thousand dead centuries.

And all the soul-stirring agencies of rapturous nature pulsed and glowed down upon the night-world of mankind. A neutral moon whose fixed face, young yet, unsmiled and uncreased with the joys and woes upheld by the supplicant ages, seemed now to soften with mellow sympathy upon a girl-heart below. Could even a stoic moon look upon this girl unmoved? Belle-Ann leaned listlessly against the bronze rail that girded the fountain, gazing with expectant eyes, along the moonlit path leading to the seminary.

The Chapel bells chimed out their angelus across the fantasmal gloaming, tinkling through the girl's mood in utter harmony with the music of her soul, and the supernal smiles that lingered about her cupid lips. Beneath the enchanting rays of the moon, Belle-Ann's wraith-like, relaxed form looked even taller. Arrayed in a vision of delicate blue silk and lace, clinging to the pronounced curves of her subtle outlines, she presented an unforgettable picture; a rare hellenism of feminine beauty. A type to ravish the senses. The shimmering blackness of the girlish curls that crowded around her small features, contrasted adorably with her eburnean skin, natural as the purity of rose petals, soft and fine-textured, from which the mountain tan had long since vanished.

A bouquet of great roses was pinned at her bosom, and the musk of calcanthus was in her curls. Her lips parted and she hummed a soft ditty. The sweet dulcet timbre of her voice was a mellowed sound wafted straight from the realms of Dixie. Her whole palpable self irradiated and pulsed with the subtle witchery and glamour of the South.

As she stood in the half-shadow of the fountain gazing intently along the hedge-hemmed path, a sudden gladness stirred her as she discerned what her eyes had sought. Two vague forms descended from the porch, coupled perilously near together. Then, as they halted beneath the dappled shadows of the rose-tree, Belle-Ann fancied she saw a white sleeve against a sable shoulder. It may have been the trick of her imagination, but it seemed that the man stooped his head and lingered over the white-clad figure.

She knew it was Colonel Tennytown and Miss Worth who tarried there. Belle-Ann had known all evening that he would seek her out. She had not laid eyes on him since the Sunday preceding that memorable dawn when Miss Worth had revealed his relationship. But now with a heart full to the brim with gratitude she awaited his coming, and to acknowledge her grandfather.

Presently, the Colonel's tall figure emerged from the shadows and came toward her. With his broad hat in his hand he halted before her and smilingly bowed in courtly grace. As Belle-Ann looked straight into his eyes, her face was now all aflush with pleasure and the baffling dimples were at play.