ved that he had got to the core and heart of the place at
last. His interest was so intense that he failed to conceal it. He
walked to the window and noticed the pouring rain that was streaming
between the rustic pillars of the balustrades into the garden below. He
examined the pictures; only two of them were portraits, but in the
background of one was an undoubted representation of the house itself;
the other was a portrait of a beautiful boy in a blue jacket and a shirt
with a wide frill laid back and open at the neck. Under his arm appeared
the head of a greyish dog.

"That creature," Brandon thought, "is almost exactly like my old dog
Smokey. I am very much mistaken if this is not the portrait of one of
his ancestors."

He turned to ask some question about it, and observed to his surprise
that Mrs. Melcombe had left the room, and he was alone with Laura, who
had seated herself on a sofa and taken a long piece of crochet-work from
her pocket, which she was doing almost with the air of one who waits
patiently till somebody else has finished his investigations.

"I thought you would be interested in that picture," she said; "you
recognise it, I suppose?"

"No!" he exclaimed.

"It used not to be here," said Laura; "the dear grandmother, as long as
she lived, always had it in her bedroom. It's Mr. Mortimer, your
stepfather, when he was a boy, and that was his dog, a great favourite;
when he ran away the dog disappeared--it was always supposed that it ran
after him. I suppose," continued Laura, impelled to say this to some one
who was sure to be impressed by it--"I suppose nobody ever did mourn as
my grandmother did over the loss of those two sons. Yet she never used
to blame them."

They did run away then, and they did keep away, and yet she did not
blame them. How deeply pathetic these things seemed. Whatever it might
be that had made his step-father write that letter, it appeared now to
be thrown back to the time when he had divided himself thus from his
family and taken his boy brother with him.

"And that other portrait," said Laura, "we found up in one of the
garrets, and hung here when the house was restored. It is the portrait
of my grandmother's only brother, who was sixteen or eighteen years
younger than she was. His name was Melcombe, which was her maiden name,
but ours, you know, was really Mortimer. It is very much darkened by
time and neglect, and never was of any particular value."

"What has he g