"She is not a child now, your grace; she has grown to be a beautiful girl." "Is she still beautiful?" asked her grace. "I do not think the sun, when it rises in the morning, is brighter," replied Mark, with unconscious poetry. "I am almost sorry to hear it," said her grace. "There are more qualities than beauty for a girl in her position, Mr. Brace." "Yes; but we can't help it." "And," interrupted the duchess, "have you heard any more? Do you know to whom she belongs? Have you any trace of her parentage?" Lady Estelle shut her jeweled fan, and laid it on the table. Her eyes were fixed on Mark's face. "No, your grace," he replied. "We know no more than we did on the day she first came to us. The money comes every year. It always comes from London, generally in Bank of England notes, quite new and crisp; sometimes gold packed in a little box. It never fails." "It is so strange. There is never a word about the child in the parcels? No questions? No remarks?" "No; not one," he replied. "And what have you done with her all these years?" asked the duchess. "She had high spirits of her own." "She has been to school, your grace; it was her own wish she should go. She was away for four years without coming home." "Then she is clever and accomplished?" said the duchess. "Yes," replied Mark; "she is as clever as any lady in the land." Then his face grew crimson, and he said to himself that he had made a great blunder. Lady Estelle smiled in her usual languid fashion. "I mean, your grace," exclaimed Mark, "that she is really very clever. She sings like a mermaid," he added, delighted at his own figure of speech; "she can dance, and speaks two foreign languages." The duchess laughed. It was impossible to help it; Mark's face was such a study as he enumerated this list of accomplishments. "I should like to see your _protegee_, Mr. Brace," said her grace; "but as she is inclined to be vain, it would be wise perhaps not to tell her that I have expressed such a wish." Mark looked very wise; he quite agreed with it. "You might say," continued her grace, "that you are coming over to the Castle next week on business, and bring her with you." "I will, your grace," said Mark, proudly. "I am coming on business next Tuesday; my lease is to be renewed. I will bring her with me. She is engaged to be married," he added, bluntly. "Engaged!" repeated the duchess. "Why, she cannot be more than nineteen." "She is nineteen," said Mark; "and, of course, I shall not allow her to be married for a year." "You are quite right," interrupted the duchess. Lady Estelle had opened her fan, and she stirred it gently, as she asked: "To whom is she engaged?" Mark declared, in reporting the conversation, that it was the grammar that destroyed him. It made him feel unequal to giving any answer. He turned uneasily in his chair. "To whom is she engaged?" repeated the clear, musical voice. "Why, my lady, he is a poet and a gentleman."