man, you'd better steer clear of my young
sister Jill. She's got a downer on you, and so has--"

"Do you hear, sir?" shouted the father.

Somehow this genial interruption robbed Mr Ratman of his ideas, and
stopped the flow of his discourse, much to the relief of the remainder
of the party.

"Well?" said Mr Armstrong, when he and his ward met afterwards in the
room of the latter, "how do you like our new visitor?"

"So badly that I am thankful for once that Rosalind has gone."

Mr Armstrong looked hard at his ward for a moment. Then he twitched
his glass uncomfortably, and replied in an absent sort of way--

"Quite so--quite so."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

A VOICE FROM THE DEAD.

Roger Ingleton's reflections, as he lay awake on the morning of his
twentieth birthday, were not altogether self-congratulatory. He was
painfully aware that he was what he himself would have styled a poor
creature. He was as weak, physically, as a girl; he was not
particularly clever; he was given to a melancholy which made him pass
for dull in society. Ill-health dogged him whenever he tried to achieve
anything out of the commonplace. His tenantry regarded him still as a
boy, and very few of his few friends set much store by him for his own
sake apart from his fortune.

"A poor show altogether," said he to himself. "That boy on the wall
there would have made a much better thing of it. There's some go in
him, especially the copy that Rosalind--"

Here he pulled up. In addition to his other misfortunes, it occurred to
him now definitely for the first time that he was in love.

"She doesn't care two straws about me," said he ungratefully; "that is,
except in a sisterly way. Why should she? I know nothing about art,
which she loves. I'm saddled with pots of money, which she hates. The
only way I can interest her is by being ill. I'm not even scape-grace
enough to make it worth her while to take me in hand to reform me.
Heigho! It's a pity that brother of mine had not lived. Yes, you," he
added, shaking his head at the portrait, "with your wild harum-scarum
face and mocking laugh. You'd have suited her, and been able to make
her like you--I can't. I believe she thinks more of Armstrong than me.
Not much wonder either. Only, wouldn't he be horrified if any one
suggested such a thing!"

And the somewhat dismal soliloquy ended in a some what dismal laugh, as
the heir of Maxfield assumed the perpendicular and pulled up hi