“Don’t you remember? I told you about her. My only sister--such a pretty girl; but when she was eighteen, she ran away to America--with the postman.” “How awful! Has nothing been heard of her?” “No, not for many years. I used to write to her, and send her money on the sly; my father would never allow her name to be mentioned.” “He was right, I think; she behaved disgracefully.” “My father married late in life, and had no sympathy with young people. Nora never had a moment’s freedom, and she was a wild, gay sort of girl--poor Nora! I’ve lost sight of her this twenty years; she was five years younger than I.” In spite of her husband’s warning, Kilmoran Castle proved a terrible disappointment to the bride. First of all a mean little hump-backed gate lodge, covered with ivy as with a cloak, and a common rusty iron gate, then a winding weedy drive, and finally, the Castle!--merely a square grey keep, against which a two-storeyed white house had propped itself. There were no towers or battlements, there was not even a pillared porch to hide the vulgarity of a grass-green hall door. The garden in front was a dreary wilderness of overgrown box and old fuchsias. In short, the Castle had nothing pretty, noble, or uncommon, to recommend it; it was not even dignified by a curse, or a ghost. Within were several large low sitting-rooms, antique furniture, family pictures, and a smell of soot and dry rot. The bride having ascended to her room, collapsed on the first chair in floods of tears--bitter, angry tears. However, Julia Doran was not the sort of woman to sit and weep, and she soon, to use an American term, “took hold.” She explored the house, and cleverly appraised its mouldy contents, discovered the great stable-yard--capable of holding a troop of cavalry--and the huge garden, remnants of the glories of a former mansion; here, at least, was a sense of comfort and importance. The demesne was pretty, and the views lovely. After all, she was Mrs. Doran of Kilmoran Castle, and matters might be worse. For instance, she might still be Miss Barker--living on her friends, and her wits, in some cheap suburban boarding-house. To all important correspondents she despatched glowing accounts of her home, and on her cards and writing-paper was engraved “Kilmoran Castle” in clear large type; and as far as people in England could tell, it might be Chatsworth itself! Then the new lady (there had not been a Mrs. Doran for more than forty years) began to institute improvements. Trees were cut down, old lumber carted away, rooms were opened and aired; she set up a carriage, and taught the immediate neighbourhood to keep its distance. There was to be no running in and out of the Castle _now_. Next, she issued an edict, and dismissed several old servants. Dotards and blood-suckers, she termed them, and if they had been forty years at Kilmoran, it was twenty years too long. She set her face sternly against authorised beggars, and