in the unsteady shine of the
blaze. In a short time he had drawn near to the painting of the ancestor
whom he so greatly resembled. When her quick eye noted the speck on
the face, indicative of inherited traits strongly pronounced, a new and
romantic feeling that the De Stancys had stretched out a tentacle from
their genealogical tree to seize her by the hand and draw her in to
their mass took possession of Paula. As has been said, the De Stancys
were a family on whom the hall-mark of membership was deeply stamped,
and by the present light the representative under the portrait and the
representative in the portrait seemed beings not far removed. Paula was
continually starting from a reverie and speaking irrelevantly, as if
such reflections as those seized hold of her in spite of her natural
unconcern.

When candles were brought in Captain De Stancy ardently contrived to
make the pictures the theme of conversation. From the nearest they went
to the next, whereupon Paula as hostess took up one of the candlesticks
and held it aloft to light up the painting. The candlestick being tall
and heavy, De Stancy relieved her of it, and taking another candle in
the other hand, he imperceptibly slid into the position of exhibitor
rather than spectator. Thus he walked in advance holding the two candles
on high, his shadow forming a gigantic figure on the neighbouring wall,
while he recited the particulars of family history pertaining to each
portrait, that he had learnt up with such eager persistence during the
previous four-and-twenty-hours. 'I have often wondered what could have
been the history of this lady, but nobody has ever been able to tell
me,' Paula observed, pointing to a Vandyck which represented a beautiful
woman wearing curls across her forehead, a square-cut bodice, and a
heavy pearl necklace upon the smooth expanse of her neck.

'I don't think anybody knows,' Charlotte said.

'O yes,' replied her brother promptly, seeing with enthusiasm that
it was yet another opportunity for making capital of his acquired
knowledge, with which he felt himself as inconveniently crammed as a
candidate for a government examination. 'That lady has been largely
celebrated under a fancy name, though she is comparatively little
known by her own. Her parents were the chief ornaments of the
almost irreproachable court of Charles the First, and were not more
distinguished by their politeness and honour than by the affections and
virtues wh