I hope you are well and happy." "I am very well, and I ought to be happy, because I have recovered Claude's lost heiress, my cousin, Iris Deseret, and she is the best and most delightful of girls, with the warmest heart and the sweetest instincts of a lady by descent and birth." She looked severely at Arnold, who said nothing, but smiled incredulously.
Mr.Farrar looked from Iris to Miss Holland, bewildered.
"And why do you come to see me to-day, Mr.Farrar--and with Arnold ?" "Because I have undertaken to answer one question presently, which Mr.
Arbuthnot is to ask me.

That is why I am here.

Not but what it gives me the greatest pleasure to see you again, Miss Holland, after so many years." "Our poor Claude died in America, you know, Mr.Farrar." "So I have recently heard." "And left one daughter." "That also I have learned." He looked at Iris.
"She is with me, here in this house, and has been with me for a week.
You may understand, Mr.Farrar, the happiness I feel in having with me Claude's only daughter." Mr.Farrar looked from her to Arnold with increasing amazement.

But he said nothing.
"I have appointed this morning, at Arnold's request," Clara went on, "to have an interview, perhaps the last, with the gentleman who brought my dear Iris from America.

I say, at Arnold's request, because he asked me to do this, and I have always trusted him implicitly, and I hope he is not going to bring trouble upon us now, although I do not, I confess, understand the presence of his friends or their connection with my cousin." "My dear Clara," said Arnold again, "I ask for nothing but patience.
And that only for a few moments.