“Nathanael will have his way, you see. If you only knew what he was as a little boy,” and the Beauty shrugged her shoulders pathetically. “Really, as Harrie says, most men would never get wives at all, did their lady loves know them only half as well as their sisters do.” “Nay,” said the good-natured Mary, “but Harrie also says that men, like wine, improve with age, especially if they are kept cool and not too much shaken up. She has no doubt that even her Duke was a very disagreeable boy. So, Mrs. Harper, let me assure you----”-- “There is no need; I am quite satisfied,” said Mrs. Harper, with no small dignity; and at this momentous crisis her father-in-law entered the room. He entered dressed for riding--looking somewhat younger than the night before, more cheerful and pleasant too, but not a whit less stately. He saluted Agatha first, and then his daughters, with a gracious solemnity, patting their cheeks all round, something after the fashion of a good-humoured Eastern bashaw. The old gentleman evidently took a secret pride in his womenkind. Then he shook hands with “my son Nathanael,” and threw abroad generally a few ordinary remarks, to which his two daughters listened with great reverence. But in all he did or said was the same benignant hauteur; he seemed frozen up within a conglomerate of reserve and formal courtesy; he walked, talked, looked perpetually as Nathanael Harper, Esquire, of Kingcombe Holm, who never allowed either his mind or his body to appear _en déshabille_. Agatha wondered how he could ever have been a baby squalling, a boy playing, or a young man wooing; nay, more (the thought irresistibly presented itself as she noticed the extreme feebleness which his dignity but half disguised), how he would ever stoop to the last levelling of all humanity--the grave-clothes and the tomb. “Any letters, my dear children? Any news to tell me before I ride to Kingcombe?” said he, looking round the circle with a patronising interest, which Agatha would scarcely have believed real, but for the kindly expression of the old man's eye. “There were plenty of letters for Elizabeth, as usual; one for Eulalie “--here Eulalie looked affectedly conscious--“no others, I think.” “Except one to Nathanael from Frederick,” observed the Beauty. At the name of his eldest son the Squire's mien became a little graver--a little statelier. He said coldly, “Nathanael, I hope you have pleasant news from your brother. Where is he now?” “In the British Channel, on his way to the Continent.” “My son going abroad, and I never heard of it! Some mistake, surely. He is not really gone?” “Yes, father, for a year, or perhaps more--but certainly a year.” The old gentleman's fingers nervously clutched the handle of his riding-whip. “If so, Frederick would certainly have shown his father the respect of informing _him_ first. Excuse me if I doubt whether my son's plans are quite decided.”