e papers he brings me. Of course I informed him that
even if he should be able to establish a legal marriage he could expect
nothing as next of kin, as you had children of your own. He seemed to
know that already, and avowed that his only wish was to satisfy his own
mind."

"I suppose he wants to claim kinship and all that sort of thing for
society's sake?"

"I do not think so," said the solicitor dryly. "I suggested an interview
with you, but he seemed to think it quite unnecessary, if I could give
him the information he required."

"Ha!" said Sir Edward promptly, "we'll invite him here. Lady Atherly can
bring in some people to see him. Is he--ahem--What is he like? The usual
American, I suppose?"

"Not at all. Quite foreign-looking--dark, and rather like an Italian.
There is no resemblance to Mr. Philip," he said, glancing at the
painting of a flaxen-haired child fondling a greyhound under the elms of
Ashley Park.

"Ah! Yes, yes! Perhaps the mother was one of those Southern creoles, or
mulattoes," said Sir Edward with an Englishman's tolerant regard for
the vagaries of people who were clearly not English; "they're rather
attractive women, I hear."

"I think you do quite well to be civil to him," said the solicitor. "He
seems to take an interest in the family, and being rich, and apparently
only anxious to enhance the family prestige, you ought to know him. Now,
in reference to those mortgages on Appleby Farm, if you could get"--

"Yes, yes!" said Sir Edward quickly; "we'll have him down here; and, I
say! YOU'LL come too?"

The solicitor bowed. "And, by the way," continued Sir Edward, "there was
a girl too,--wasn't there? He has a sister, I believe?"

"Yes, but he has left her in America."

"Ah, yes!--very good--yes!--of course. We'll have Lord Greyshott and
Sir Roger and old Lady Everton,--she knows all about Sir Ashley and the
family. And--er--is he young or old?"

"About thirty, I should say, Sir Edward."

"Ah, well! We'll have Lady Elfrida over from the Towers."

Had Peter known of these preparations he might have turned back to
Nonningsby without even visiting the old church in Ashley Park, which
he had been told held the ashes of his ancestors. For during these four
months the conviction that he was a foreigner and that he had little or
nothing in common with things here had been clearly forced upon him. He
could recognize some kinship in the manners and customs of the people to
those he had know