trait, and thought of her first
interview with Maltravers; but the soft voice of Colonel Legard murmured
in her ear; and her revery was broken.

Cleveland eyed the colonel, and muttered to himself, "Vargrave should
keep a sharp look-out."

They had now finished their round of the show-apartments--which indeed
had little but their antiquity and old portraits to recommend them--and
were in a lobby at the back of the house, communicating with a
courtyard, two sides of which were occupied with the stables. The sight
of the stables reminded Caroline of the Arab horses; and at the word
"horses" Lord Doltimore seized Legard's arm and carried him off to
inspect the animals. Caroline, her father, and the admiral followed. Mr.
Cleveland happened not to have on his walking-shoes; and the flagstones
in the courtyard looked damp; and Mr. Cleveland, like most old
bachelors, was prudently afraid of cold; so he excused himself, and
stayed behind. He was talking to Evelyn about the Digbys, and full of
anecdotes about Sir Kenelm at the moment the rest departed so abruptly;
and Evelyn was interested, so she insisted on keeping him company.

The old gentleman was flattered; he thought it excellent breeding
in Miss Cameron. The children ran out to renew acquaintance with the
peacock, who, perched on an old stirrup-stone, was sunning his gay
plumage in the noon-day.

"It is astonishing," said Cleveland, "how certain family features are
transmitted from generation to generation! Maltravers has still
the forehead and eyebrows of the Digbys,--that peculiar, brooding,
thoughtful forehead, which you observed in the picture of Sir Kenelm.
Once, too, he had much the same dreaming character of mind, but he
has lost that, in some measure at least. He has fine qualities, Miss
Cameron,--I have known him since he was born. I trust his career is not
yet closed; could he but form ties that would bind him to England, I
should indulge in higher expectations than I did even when the wild boy
turned half the heads in Gottingen.

"But we were talking of family portraits: there is one in the
entrance-hall, which perhaps you have not observed; it is half
obliterated by damp and time, yet it is of a remarkable personage,
connected with Maltravers by ancestral intermarriages,--Lord Falkland,
the Falkland of Clarendon; a man weak in character, but made most
interesting by history,--utterly unfitted for the severe ordeal of those
stormy times; sighing for peac