“My dear aunt,” returned Barnes, amiably, “all of us stay-at-homes are imposed upon by our traveling brothers. I have a friend who has been to India whom I have often confuted with the aid of an encyclopedia. Unless I’m mistaken, my stories will compare favorably with any Joe himself might tell.”
“They couldn’t be much more untruthful,” the aunt admitted, thinking of her mine.
“That gives me a pleasant margin.”
“Of one fact I can assure you,” she further volunteered, “gold does not lie around the hills in chunks—at least not in the vicinity of ‘The Lucky Find.’”
“I’ll make a note of that.”
“Which I hope will prove more valuable than my nephew’s notes.”
John stole in at the door.
“He is calling for Mr. Van Patten, Miss Schuyler.”
Schuyler? Barnes received a pleasant surprise at the name. His ancestors had fought under Schuyler and now fortune had decreed that he himself should enter an engagement with one of that hero’s descendants.
Aunt Philomela glanced towards Barnes with something like reliance.