“Egad!” muttered he to himself, “we have been very heartless all this time, there's no denying it; and if poor George's girl be a disciple of that grim old woman with the rosary and the wrinkles, it is nobody's fault but our own.” He looked at his watch; Dinah had been gone more than half an hour. What a time to keep him in suspense! Of course there were formalities,--the Sister Lydia described innumerable ones,--jail delivery was nothing to it, but surely five-and-thirty minutes would suffice to sign a score of documents. The place was becoming hateful to him. The grand old park, with its aged oaks, seemed sad as a graveyard, and the great silent house, where not a footfall sounded, appeared a tomb. “Poor child! what a dreary spot you have spent your brightest years in,--what a shadow to throw over the whole of a lifetime!” He had just arrived at that point wherein his granddaughter arose before his mind a pale, careworn, sorrow-struck girl, crushed beneath the dreary monotony of a joyless life, and seeming only to move in a sort of dreamy melancholy, when the door opened, and Miss Barrington entered with her arm around a young girl tall as herself, and from whose commanding figure even the ungainly dress she wore could not take away the dignity. “This is Josephine, Peter,” said Miss Dinah; and though Barrington rushed forward to clasp her in his arms, she merely crossed hers demurely on her breast and courtesied deeply. “It is your grandpapa, Josephine,” said Miss Dinah, half tartly. The young girl opened her large, full, lustrous eyes, and stared steadfastly at him, and then, with infinite grace, she took his hand and kissed it. “My own dear child,” cried the old man, throwing his arms around her, “it is not homage, it is your love we want.” “Take care, Peter, take care,” whispered his sister; “she is very timid and very strange.” “You speak English, I hope, dear?” said the old man. “Yes, sir, I like it best,” said she. And there was the very faintest possible foreign accent in the words. “Is n't that George's own voice, Dinah? Don't you think you heard himself there?” “The voice is certainly like him,” said Miss Dinah, with a marked emphasis. “And so are--no, not her eyes, but her brow, Dinah. Yes, darling, you have his own frank look, and I feel sure you have his own generous nature.” “They say I'm like my mother's picture,” said she, unfastening a locket she wore from its chain and handing it. And both Peter and his sister gazed eagerly at the miniature. It was of a very dark but handsome woman in a rich turban, and who, though profusely ornamented with costly gems, did, in reality, present a resemblance to the cloistered figure before them. “Am I like her?” asked the girl, with a shade more of earnestness in her voice. “You are, darling; but like your father, too, and every word you utter brings back his memory; and see, Dinah, if that is n't George's old trick,--to lay one hand in the palm of the other.”