gh."

I had not found my tongue before we had ascended a broad flight of
stairs under the portico, passed a spacious hall adorned with statues
and fragrant with large orange-trees, and, entering a small room hung
with pictures, in which were arranged all the appliances for breakfast,
my companion said to a lady, who rose from behind the tea-urn: "My dear
Ellinor, I introduce to you the son of our old friend Augustine Caxton.
Make him stay with us as long as he can. Young gentleman, in Lady
Ellinor Trevanion think that you see one whom you ought to know well;
family friendships should descend."

My host said these last words in an imposing tone, and then pounced on
a letter-bag on the table, drew forth an immense heap of letters
and newspapers, threw himself into an armchair, and seemed perfectly
forgetful of my existence.

The lady stood a moment in mute surprise, and I saw that she changed
color from pale to red, and red to pale, before she came forward with
the enchanting grace of unaffected kindness, took me by the hand, drew
me to a seat next to her own, and asked so cordially after my father, my
uncle, my whole family, that in five minutes I felt myself at home. Lady
Ellinor listened with a smile (though with moistened eyes, which she
wiped every now and then) to my artless details. At length she said,--

"Have you never heard your father speak of me,--I mean of us; of the
Trevanions?"

"Never," said I, bluntly; "and that would puzzle me, only my dear
father, you know, is not a great talker."

"Indeed! he was very animated when I knew him," said Lady Ellinor; and
she turned her head and sighed.

At this moment there entered a young lady so fresh, so blooming, so
lovely that every other thought vanished out of my head at once. She
came in singing, as gay as a bird, and seeming to my adoring sight quite
as native to the skies.

"Fanny," said Lady Ellinor, "shake hands with Mr. Caxton, the son of
one whom I have not seen since I was little older than you, but whom I
remember as if it were but yesterday."

Miss Fanny blushed and smiled, and held out her hand with an easy
frankness which I in vain endeavored to imitate. During breakfast, Mr.
Trevanion continued to read his letters and glance over the papers, with
an occasional ejaculation of "Pish!" "Stuff!" between the intervals in
which he mechanically swallowed his tea, or some small morsels of dry
toast. Then rising with a suddenness which characterized h