ntal, and it may be----"

"Stuff and nonsense, my dear," interrupted the old lady, brusquely.
"There's nothing accidental about this. You're the living image of
somebody, but who it is I can't for the life of me imagine. What do
you say your name is?"

"My surname, you mean?--Trevor," replied Austin, beginning to be
rather interested.

"Trevor!" cried Lady Merthyr Tydvil, her voice rising almost to a
squeak. "No relation to Geoffrey Trevor who was in the 16th Lancers?"

"He was my father," said Austin, much surprised.

"Why, my dear, my dear, he was a _great_ friend of mine!" exclaimed
the old lady, raising both her hands. "I knew him twenty years ago and
more, and was fonder of him than I ever let out to anybody. Of course
it doesn't matter a bit now, but I always told him that if I'd been a
single woman, and a quarter of a century younger, I'd have married him
out of hand. That was a standing joke between us, for I was old enough
to be his mother, and he was already engaged--ah, and a sweet pretty
creature she was, too, and I don't wonder he fell in love with her. So
you are Geoffrey's son! I can scarcely believe it, even now. But it's
your mother you take after, not Geoffrey. She was a Miss--Miss----"

"Her maiden name was Waterfield," interpolated Austin.

"So it was, so it was!" assented the old lady, eagerly. "What a memory
you've got, to be sure. One of Sir Philip Waterfield's daughters, down
in Leicestershire. And her other name was Dorothea. Why, I remember it
all now as though it had happened yesterday. Your father made me his
confidante all through; such a state as he was in you never saw,
wondering whether she'd have him, never able to screw up his courage
to ask her, now all down in the dumps and the next day halfway up to
the moon. Well, of course they were married at last, and then I
somehow lost sight of them. They went abroad, I think, and when they
came back they settled in some place on the other side of nowhere and
I never saw them again. And you are their son Austin!"

Interested as he was in these reminiscences, Austin could not help
being struck with the wonderful grace of this curious old lady's
gestures. In spite of her skimpy dress and antiquated bonnet, she was,
he thought, the most exquisitely-bred old woman he had ever seen.
Every movement was a charm, and he watched her, as she spoke, with
growing fascination and delight.

"It is quite marvellous to think you knew my parents," he