Mattie Drummond," replied the bewildered Mattie, trying
to speak with dignity,--she never would call herself Matilda, she
hated it so,--"and I live with my brother, who is the clergyman of the
parish. This is the vicarage: if you want the Friary, it is a little
lower down the road."

"Where?" he asked, striding to the gate; and then he came back again,
taking the few steps at a single bound,--so at least it appeared to
Mattie. "Why--why--there is no house at all--only a miserable cottage,
and----"

"That is the Friary," repeated Mattie, decidedly; "but it is not
miserable at all: it is very nice and pretty. The Challoners are very
poor, you know; but their house looks beautiful for all that."

"Oh, yes; I know all about it. I have been down to that place,
Oldfield, where they lived; and what I heard has brought me here like
an express train. I say, Miss Mattie Drummond, if you will excuse
ceremony in a fellow who has never seen his father's country before,
and who has roughed it in the colonies, may I come in a moment and ask
you a few questions about my cousins?"

"Oh, by all means," returned Mattie, who was very good-natured and was
now more at her ease. "You will be very welcome, Mr. Challoner."

"Sir Henry Challoner, at your service," responded that singular
individual with a twinkle of his eye, as Mattie became confused all at
once. "You see," he continued, confidentially, as she led the way
rather awkwardly to her brother's study, hoping fervently that Archie
would come in, "I have been making up my mind to come to England for
years, but somehow I have never been able to get away; but after my
father's death--he was out in Australia with me--I was so lonely and
cut up that I thought I would take a run over to the mother-country
and hunt up my relations. He was not much of a father perhaps; but, as
one cannot have a choice in such matters, I was obliged to put up with
him;" which was perhaps the kindest speech Sir Francis's son could
make under the circumstances.

Mattie listened intelligently, but she was so slightly acquainted with
the Challoners' past history that she did not know they possessed any
relations. But she had no need to ask any questions: the new-comer
seemed determined to give a full account of himself.

"So do you see, Miss Drummond, having made my fortune by a stroke of
good luck, and not knowing quite how to spend it--the father and
mother both gone,--and having no wife or chick of my o