pain. He was
believed to have visited the East, to have fought in Egypt, to have run
blockades in South America, to have found priceless diamonds in South
Africa. He had suffered the awful penances of the Fakirs, he had fasted
with the monks of Mount Athos; he had endured the silence of La Trappe;
men said that the Sheik-ul-Islam had himself bound the green turban
round Lord Blandamer's head. He could shoot, he could hunt, he could
fish, he could fight, he could sing, he could play all instruments; he
could speak all languages as fluently as his own; he was the very wisest
and the very handsomest, and--some hinted--the very wickedest man that
ever lived, yet no one had ever seen him. Here was indeed a conjunction
of romance for Anastasia, to find so mysterious and distinguished a
stranger face to face with her alone under the same roof; yet she showed
none of those hesitations, tremblings, or faintings that the situation
certainly demanded.

Martin Joliffe, her father, had been a handsome man all his life, and
had known it. In youth he prided himself on his good looks, and in old
age he was careful of his personal appearance. Even when his
circumstances were at their worst he had managed to obtain well-cut
clothes. They were not always of the newest, but they sat well on his
tall and upright figure; "Gentleman Joliffe" people called him, and
laughed, though perhaps something less ill-naturedly than was often the
case in Cullerne, and wondered whence a farmer's son had gotten such
manners. To Martin himself an aristocratic bearing was less an
affectation than a duty; his position demanded it, for he was in his own
eyes a Blandamer kept out of his rights.

It was his good appearance, even at five-and-forty, which induced Miss
Hunter of the Grove to run away with him, though Colonel Hunter had
promised to disown her if she ever married so far beneath her. She did
not, it is true, live long to endure her father's displeasure, but died
in giving birth to her first child. Even this sad result had failed to
melt the Colonel's heart. Contrary to all precedents of fiction, he
would have nothing to do with his little granddaughter, and sought
refuge from so untenable a position in removing from Cullerne. Nor was
Martin himself a man to feel a parent's obligations too acutely; so the
child was left to be brought up by Miss Joliffe, and to become an
addition to her cares, but much more to her joys. Martin Joliffe
con