But," he
continued, brightening up, "just the same dear old Jim Stacy of Heavy
Tree Hill, when I first knew you. Lord! dear, how it all came back to
me! That day I proposed to you in the belief that I was unexpectedly
rich and even bought a claim for the boys on the strength of it, and how
I came back to them to find that they had made a big strike on the very
claim. Lord! I remember how I was so afraid to tell them about you--and
how they guessed it--that dear old Stacy one of the first."
"Yes," said Mrs. Barker, "and I hope your friend Stacy remembered that
but for ME, when you found out that you were not rich, you'd have given
up the claim, but that I really deceived my own father to make you keep
it. I've often worried over that, George," she said pensively, turning
a diamond bracelet around her pretty wrist, "although I never said
anything about it."
"But, Kitty darling," said Barker, grasping his wife's hand, "I gave my
note for it; you know you said that was bargain enough, and I had better
wait until the note was due, and until I found I couldn't pay, before I
gave up the claim. It was very clever of you, and the boys all said so,
too. But you never deceived your father, dear," he said, looking at her
gravely, "for I should have told him everything."
"Of course, if you look at it in that way," said his wife languidly,
"it's nothing; only I think it ought to be remembered when people go
about saying papa ruined you with his hotel schemes.
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