somebody with
me!'

'Ah--whom?'

'My brother happened to be at home, and I have brought him.'

Miss De Stancy's brother had been so continuously absent from home in
India, or elsewhere, so little spoken of, and, when spoken of, so truly
though unconsciously represented as one whose interests lay wholly
outside this antiquated neighbourhood, that to Paula he had been a mere
nebulosity whom she had never distinctly outlined. To have him thus
cohere into substance at a moment's notice lent him the novelty of a new
creation.

'Is he in the drawing-room?' said Paula in a low voice.

'No, he is here. He would follow me. I hope you will forgive him.'

And then Paula saw emerge into the red beams of the dancing fire,
from behind a half-drawn hanging which screened the door, the military
gentleman whose acquaintance the reader has already made.

'You know the house, doubtless, Captain De Stancy?' said Paula, somewhat
shyly, when he had been presented to her.

'I have never seen the inside since I was three weeks old,' replied the
artillery officer gracefully; 'and hence my recollections of it are not
remarkably distinct. A year or two before I was born the entail was cut
off by my father and grandfather; so that I saw the venerable place only
to lose it; at least, I believe that's the truth of the case. But my
knowledge of the transaction is not profound, and it is a delicate point
on which to question one's father.'

Paula assented, and looked at the interesting and noble figure of the
man whose parents had seemingly righted themselves at the expense of
wronging him.

'The pictures and furniture were sold about the same time, I think?'
said Charlotte.

'Yes,' murmured De Stancy. 'They went in a mad bargain of my father with
his visitor, as they sat over their wine. My father sat down as host on
that occasion, and arose as guest.'

He seemed to speak with such a courteous absence of regret for the
alienation, that Paula, who was always fearing that the recollection
would rise as a painful shadow between herself and the De Stancys, felt
reassured by his magnanimity.

De Stancy looked with interest round the gallery; seeing which Paula
said she would have lights brought in a moment.

'No, please not,' said De Stancy. 'The room and ourselves are of so much
more interesting a colour by this light!'

As they moved hither and thither, the various expressions of De Stancy's
face made themselves picturesquely visible