"Ten thousand dollars!" Ann cried, her strong face full of gratification. "Ten thousand dollars for my sturdy mountain-boy! Ah, that will open the eyes of some of these indolent know-it-all louts who said the money spent on your education was thrown in the fire. You are all right, Luke. I'm a judge of human stock as well as cattle and horses. If you'd been a light fellow you'd have dropped me when you began to rise out there; but you didn't. Your letters have been about the only solace I've had here in all my loneliness and strife, and here you are to see me as soon as you come—that is, I reckon, you haven't been here many days."
"I got to Darley at two o'clock to-day," King smiled, affectionately. "I took the hack to Springtown and left my trunk there, to walk here. I haven't seen mother yet, Aunt Ann. I had to see you first."
"You are a good boy, Luke," Ann said, with feeling, as was indicated by her husky voice and the softening of her features. "So you are going to see your mother?"
"Yes, I'm going to see her, Aunt Ann. For several years I have felt resentment about her marrying as she did, but, do you know, I think success and good-fortune make one forgiving. Somehow, with all my joy over my good-luck, I feel like I'd like to shake even lazy old Mark Bruce by the hand and tell him I am willing to let by-gones be by-gones. Then, if I could, I'd like to help him and my mother and step-brother and step-sisters in some material way."
"Huh! I don't know about that," Ann frowned. "Help given to them sort is certainly throwed away; besides, what's yours is yours, and if you started in to distribute help you'll be ridden to death. No, go to see them if you have to, but don't let them wheedle your justly earned money out of you. They don't deserve it, Luke."
"Oh, well, we'll see about it," King laughed, lightly. "You know old Bruce may kick me out of the house, and if mother stood to him in it again"—King's eyes were flashing, his lip was drawn tight—"I guess I'd never go back any more, Aunt Ann."
"Old Mark would never send you away if he thought you had money," Ann said, cynically. "If I was you I'd not let them know about that. You see, you could keep them in the dark easily enough, for I've told them absolutely nothing except that you were getting along fairly well."
King smiled. "They never would think I had much to judge by this suit of clothes," he said. "It is an old knockabout rig I had to splash around in the mud in while out hunting, and I put it on this morning—well, just because I did not want to come back among all my poor relatives and friends dressed up as I have been doing in the city, Aunt Ann," he laughed, as if making sport of himself. "I've got a silk high-hat as slick as goose-grease, and a long jimswinger coat, and pants that are always ironed as sharp as a knife-blade in front. I took your advice and decided that a good appearance went a long way, but I don't really think I overdid it."
"I'm glad you didn't put on style in coming back, anyway," Ann said, proudly. "It wouldn't have looked well in you; but you did right to dress like the best where you were, and it had something—a lots, I imagine—to do with your big success. If you want to go in and win in any undertaking, don't think failure for one minute, and the trouble is that shabby clothes are a continual reminder of poverty. Make folks believe at the outset that you are of the best, and then be the best."
King was looking down thoughtfully. "There is one trouble," he said, "in making a good appearance, and that comes from the ideas of some as to what sort of man or woman is the best. Before I left Seattle, Aunt Ann, my associates gave me a big dinner at the club—a sort of good-bye affair to drink to my future, you know—and some of the most distinguished men in the state were there, men prominent in the business and political world. And that night, Aunt Ann"—King had flushed slightly and his voice faltered—"that night a well-meaning man, a sort of society leader, in his toast to me plainly referred to me as a scion of the old Southern aristocracy, and he did it in just such a way as to make it appear to those who knew otherwise that I would be sailing under false colors if I did not correct the impression. He had made a beautiful talk about our old colonial homes, our slaves in livery, our beautiful women, who invariably graced the courts of Europe, and concluded by saying that it was no wonder I had succeeded where many other men with fewer hereditary influences to back them had failed."