Cyril’s eyes were gray, and had that steady look which passes for severity; his nose was slightly aquiline, his mouth beautiful, his brow broad and high, with hair of neutral brown cut close to the well-shaped head, and curling crisply--hair like a gladiator’s, said Kenrick, who rather prided himself upon the lighter auburn of his own locks, as he also did upon the finer line of his nose, which inclined to the Grecian, and accorded with his low straight brow and expressionless eyes, whose pupils seemed to have no more life and colour than the sculptor’s dint in the marble orb. Kenrick had what is called an aristocratic look, and rather flattered himself upon those evidences of blue blood supposed to exist in an attenuated but open nostril, a tapering hand, and an arched instep. These peculiarities, he imagined, declared as plainly as Domesday Book or title-deeds that the Culverhouses were great people on the other side of the Channel before they honoured England by coming across the sea with Norman William to appropriate some portion of it. ‘She is a noble creature,’ said Cyril, with conviction, when he had pressed the last shred of latakia into the well-filled bowl, ‘but she is Christian Harefield’s only child; and he is rich enough and suspicious enough to impute mercenary motives to any poor man who ventured to fall in love with his daughter.’ ‘Fathers have flinty hearts,’ retorted Kenrick, lightly. ‘That’s an old saying, but sons and daughters generally contrive to follow their own inclinations in spite of paternal flintiness. I feel very sure that Beatrix will choose for herself, and marry the man she loves. She is just the kind of girl to dash herself blindly against the torrent of paternal wrath. It would be a grand thing for you, Cyril. You could have the Culverhouse living--a poor benefice, but on your native soil--and live at the Castle. I doubt if I shall ever be able to occupy it properly,’ he added, with a regretful sigh. ‘I would take her without a sixpence, and work for her and cherish her all the days of my life,’ said Cyril, in a deep-toned voice that trembled with strong feeling, ‘but I cannot teach her to rebel against her father. “Honour thy father and thy mother.” She hears me read that sublime command every other Sunday, and am I to be the first to teach her to set it at nought?’ ‘How do you know that the old Druid would object to you?’ ‘I do not know as much directly, but Beatrix tells me that he will oppose any choice of hers.’ ‘Obnoxious ancient Briton! Well, Cyril, all I can say is, if I were in love with a girl, I should think no more of her father than Romeo did of old Capulet, and I should sink the fifth commandment till after I’d married her--and then she could honour her father with a cock robin and holly bush card at Christmas, or a pair of muffettees on New Year’s Day, or a sugar egg at Easter.’ CHAPTER III. IN THE PARISH CHURCH.