s, for him, unusually long speech, he finished his glass, lighted
his bedroom candle, and nodding a good-night, strolled away.

'I'd give a crown to know where I heard of you before!' said Walpole, as he
stared up at the portrait.

CHAPTER VII

THE COUSINS

'Only think of it!' cried Kate to her cousin, as she received Walpole's
note. 'Can you fancy, Nina, any one having the curiosity to imagine this
old house worth a visit? Here is a polite request from two tourists to be
allowed to see the--what is it?--the interesting interior of Kilgobbin
Castle!'

'Which I hope and trust you will refuse. The people who are so eager for
these things are invariably tiresome old bores, grubbing for antiquities,
or intently bent on adding a chapter to their story of travel. You'll say
No, dearest, won't you?'

'Certainly, if you wish it. I am not acquainted with Captain Lockwood, nor
his friend Mr. Cecil Walpole.'

'Did you say Cecil Walpole?' cried the other, almost snatching the card
from her fingers. 'Of all the strange chances in life, this is the very
strangest! What could have brought Cecil Walpole here?'

'You know him, then?'

'I should think I do! What duets have we not sung together? What waltzes
have we not had? What rides over the Campagna? Oh dear! how I should like
to talk over these old times again! Pray tell him he may come, Kate, or let
me do it.'

'And papa away!'

'It is the castle, dearest, he wants to see, not papa! You don't know
what manner of creature this is! He is one of your refined and supremely
cultivated English--mad about archaeology and mediaeval trumpery. He'll know
all your ancestors intended by every insane piece of architecture, and
every puzzling detail of this old house; and he'll light up every corner of
it with some gleam of bright tradition.'

'I thought these sort of people were bores, dear?' said Kate, with a sly
malice in her look.

'Of course not. When they are well-bred and well-mannered---'

'And perhaps well-looking?' chimed in Kate.

'Yes, and so he is--a little of the _petit-maitre_, perhaps. He's much of
that school which fiction-writers describe as having "finely-pencilled
eyebrows, and chins of almost womanlike roundness"; but people in Rome
always called him handsome, that is if he be my Cecil Walpole.'

'Well, then, will you tell YOUR Cecil Walpole, in such polite terms as
you know how to coin, that there is really nothing of the very slightest
pretensio