They sat at the little centre-table, the ruddy head and the black one close together in the lamp-light, reading their Cicero. A rap at the door seemed a rude interruption; yet so unusual was the excitement of an evening visitor that they could not be quite indifferent to the event,--the less so when the visitor proved to be Polly's client of the cumbrous income.
"Good evening, Miss Polly," he called, from the door, and Polly fancied that his voice had a particularly cheerful ring in it. As he spoke, he glanced at Dan, who had opened the door.
"This is my brother, Dan. Won't you come in, Mr. Clapp?"
"With all the pleasure in the world, for I have come in the character of Santa Claus."
"Have you indeed?" thought Polly to herself; "we'll see about that!" Perhaps there was something in her manner that betrayed her thoughts, for her visitor said, with evident amusement:
"You take alarm too easily, Miss Polly. I should as soon think of offering a gift in my own name to,--to any other extremely rich young woman."
"I was glad to hear that your brother's name was Dan," he continued with apparent irrelevance, as he took his seat. "And more delighted still when I found out his middle name. Didn't it strike you," he asked, turning abruptly to Dan, "that your employer, Mr. Jones, was developing rather a sudden interest in your antecedents?"
"Yes," Polly thought, "he is pleased about something."
"Why, yes," Dan answered, with boyish bluntness. "But what do you know about it?"
"Only that it was I that put Jones up to making his inquiries."
"You?" Dan looked half inclined to resent the liberty. But Polly saw that there was something coming.
"Would you mind telling us what it's all about?" she asked. "You look as if you knew something nice."
"I do; it's one of the nicest things I ever knew in my life. I didn't tell you the other day, did I, that I had made most of my money in mines?"
"No," said Polly, wondering why he should want to tell them how he made "his old money."
"Well, that is the case; nearly all in one mine, too. It's a great placer mine up north. I don't suppose you know much about placer mines?"
Polly, disclaiming such knowledge, tried to look politely interested, while Dan's interest, fortunately for his manners, was very genuine. Was he not to be a mining engineer, and did he not want to learn all he could?