ut to ask her the reason for this strange request, but when she
saw I was going to address her, she rose and walked slowly out of the
room. As she did so I perceived that the lovers had ceased to talk and
that Miss Northcott was looking at me with her keen, grey eyes.

"You must excuse my aunt, Mr. Armitage," she said; "she is odd, and
easily fatigued. Come over and look at my album."

We spent some time examining the portraits. Miss Northcott's father and
mother were apparently ordinary mortals enough, and I could not detect
in either of them any traces of the character which showed itself in
their daughter's face. There was one old daguerreotype, however, which
arrested my attention. It represented a man of about the age of forty,
and strikingly handsome. He was clean shaven, and extraordinary power
was expressed upon his prominent lower jaw and firm, straight mouth.
His eyes were somewhat deeply set in his head, however, and there was a
snake-like flattening at the upper part of his forehead, which detracted
from his appearance. I almost involuntarily, when I saw the head,
pointed to it, and exclaimed--

"There is your prototype in your family, Miss Northcott."

"Do you think so?" she said. "I am afraid you are paying me a very bad
compliment. Uncle Anthony was always considered the black sheep of the
family."

"Indeed," I answered; "my remark was an unfortunate one, then."

"Oh, don't mind that," she said; "I always thought myself that he was
worth all of them put together. He was an officer in the Forty-first
Regiment, and he was killed in action during the Persian War--so he died
nobly, at any rate."

"That's the sort of death I should like to die," said Cowles, his dark
eyes flashing, as they would when he was excited; "I often wish I had
taken to my father's profession instead of this vile pill-compounding
drudgery."

"Come, Jack, you are not going to die any sort of death yet," she said,
tenderly taking his hand in hers.

I could not understand the woman. There was such an extraordinary
mixture of masculine decision and womanly tenderness about her, with
the consciousness of something all her own in the background, that she
fairly puzzled me. I hardly knew, therefore, how to answer Cowles
when, as we walked down the street together, he asked the comprehensive
question--

"Well, what do you think of her?"

"I think she is wonderfully beautiful," I answered guardedly.

"That, of course," he replied