ore complicated mind,
and I watch its development with fond, but anxious interest." Then, in
a lighter tone, she added, "You do not know very much of us. Try to know
more. Everybody under this roof views you with regard, and you are the
brother friend of our eldest son. Wherever we are, you will always find
a home; but do not touch again upon this subject, at least at present,
for it distresses me." And then she took his arm, and pressed it, and by
this time they had gained the croquet-ground.

CHAPTER 6

One of the least known squares in London is Hexham Square, though it
is one of the oldest. Not that it is very remote from the throng of
existence, but it is isolated in a dingy district of silent and decaying
streets. Once it was a favored residence of opulence and power, and its
architecture still indicates its former and prouder destiny. But its
noble mansions are now divided and broken up into separate dwellings, or
have been converted into chambers and offices. Lawyers, and
architects, and agents, dwell in apartments where the richly-sculptured
chimney-pieces, the carved and gilded pediments over the doors, and
sometimes even the painted ceilings, tell a tale of vanished stateliness
and splendor.

A considerable portion of the north side of the square is occupied by
one house standing in a courtyard, with iron gates to the thoroughfare.
This is Hexham House, and where Lord Hexham lived in the days of the
first Georges. It is reduced in size since his time, two considerable
wings, having been pulled down about sixty years ago, and their
materials employed in building some residences of less pretension.
But the body of the dwelling-house remains, and the court-yard, though
reduced in size, has been retained.

Hexham House has an old oak entrance-hall panelled with delicacy, and
which has escaped the rifling of speculators in furniture; and out of
it rises a staircase of the same material, of a noble character,
adorned occasionally with figures; armorial animals holding shields, and
sometimes a grotesque form rising from fruits and flowers, all doubtless
the work of some famous carver. The staircase led to a corridor, on
which several doors open, and through one of these, at the moment of
our history, a man, dressed in a dark cassock, and holding a card in
his hand, was entering a spacious chamber, meagrely, but not shabbily,
furnished. There was a rich cabinet and a fine picture. In the next
room, not les