‘Daphne resembles her to a most unfortunate degree,’ said Aunt Rhoda. ‘A sad story,’ sighed the Rector; ‘a sad story.’ ‘I think it would better become us to forget it,’ said his wife. ‘My love it was you who spoke of poor Lady Lawford.’ ‘Marmaduke, I am disgusted at the tone you take about her. Poor Lady Lawford indeed! I consider her quite the most execrable woman I ever heard of.’ ‘She was beautiful; men told her so, and she believed them. She was tempted; and she was weak. Execrable is a hard word, Rhoda. She never injured you.’ ‘She blighted my brother’s life. Do you suppose I can easily forgive that? You men are always ready to make excuses for a pretty woman. I heard of Colonel Kirkbank, the other day. Lady Hetheridge met him at Baden—a wreck. They say he is immensely rich. He has never married, it seems.’ ‘That at least is a grace in him. “His honour rooted in dishonour stood; and faith unfaithful kept him falsely true.”’ ‘You are in a sentimental mood this evening, Marmaduke,’ sneered Rhoda. ‘One would suppose that you had been in love with my brother’s second wife.’ ‘She has been so long in her grave that I don’t think you and I need quarrel if I confess that I admired her. There is a look in Daphne’s face now she has grown up that recalls her mother almost painfully. I hope Todd won’t burn that pheasant, Rhoda. I’m afraid she is getting a little careless. The last was as dry as a stick.’ * * * * * Scotland made up for a chilly and inferior summer by an altogether superior autumn. The days were ever so much fairer and longer on that wild north coast than they were in Warwickshire; and tempted by the beauty of sky and sea, backed by the urgent desire of his bachelor friend, the skipper of the smart schooner-rigged yacht _Kelpie_, Gerald Goring stayed much longer than he had intended to stay; atoning, so far as he could atone, for his prolonged absence, by writing his betrothed the most delightful letters, and sending a weekly packet of sepia sketches, which reflected every phase of sea and sky, rock and hill. To describe these things with his brush was as easy to Gerald as it is to other men to describe with their pens.