g man of means, having
inherited from his mother's family a still more ancient and
splendid schloss in the Salzburg district, desired to sell this
outlying estate in order to afford himself a yacht, after the manner
that is now becoming increasingly fashionable with the noblemen and
gentlemen in Germany and Austria.

The door was opened for us by a high well-born menial, attired in
a very ancient and honourable livery. Nice antique hall; suits of
ancestral armour, trophies of Tyrolese hunters, coats of arms of
ancient counts--the very thing to take Amelia's aristocratic and
romantic fancy. The whole to be sold exactly as it stood; ancestors
to be included at a valuation.

We went through the reception-rooms. They were lofty, charming, and
with glorious views, all the more glorious for being framed by those
graceful Romanesque windows, with their slender pillars and quaint,
round-topped arches. Sir Charles had made his mind up. "I must and
will have it!" he cried. "This is the place for me. Seldon! Pah,
Seldon is a modern abomination."

Could we see the high well-born Count? The liveried servant
(somewhat haughtily) would inquire of his Serenity. Sir Charles
sent up his card, and also Lady Vandrift's. These foreigners know
title spells money in England.

He was right in his surmise. Two minutes later the Count entered
with our cards in his hands. A good-looking young man, with the
characteristic Tyrolese long black moustache, dressed in a
gentlemanly variant on the costume of the country. His air was a
jager's; the usual blackcock's plume stuck jauntily in the side of
the conical hat (which he held in his hand), after the universal
Austrian fashion.

He waved us to seats. We sat down. He spoke to us in French; his
English, he remarked, with a pleasant smile, being a negligeable
quantity. We might speak it, he went on; he could understand pretty
well; but he preferred to answer, if we would allow him, in French
or German.

"French," Charles replied, and the negotiation continued thenceforth
in that language. It is the only one, save English and his ancestral
Dutch, with which my brother-in-law possesses even a nodding
acquaintance.

We praised the beautiful scene. The Count's face lighted up with
patriotic pride. Yes; it was beautiful, beautiful, his own green
Tyrol. He was proud of it and attached to it. But he could endure
to sell this place, the home of his fathers, because he had a finer
in the Salzkammerg