"Fanny," said Lady Ellinor, "shake hands with Mr Caxton, the son of one whom I have not seen since I was little older than you, but whom I remember as if it were but yesterday." Miss Fanny blushed and smiled, and held out her hand with an easy frankness which I in vain endeavoured to imitate. During breakfast, Mr Trevanion continued to read his letters and glance over the papers, with an occasional ejaculation of "Pish!" "Stuff!"--between the intervals in which he mechanically swallowed his tea, or some small morsels of dry toast. Then rising with the suddenness which characterised his movements, he stood on his hearth for a few moments buried in thought; and now that a large brimmed hat was removed from his brow, and the abruptness of his first movement, with the sedateness of his after pause, arrested my curious attention, I was more than ever ashamed of my mistake. It was a care-worn, eager, and yet musing countenance, hollow-eyed, and with deep lines; but it was one of those faces which take dignity and refinement from that mental cultivation which distinguishes the true aristocrat, viz., the highly educated, acutely intelligent man. Very handsome might that face have been in youth, for the features, though small, were exquisitely defined; the brow, partially bald, was noble and massive, and there was almost feminine delicacy in the curve of the lip. The whole expression of the face was commanding but sad. Often, as my experience of life increased, have I thought to trace upon that expressive visage the history of energetic ambition curbed by a fastidious philosophy and a scrupulous conscience; but then all that I could see was a vague, dissatisfied melancholy, which dejected me I knew not why. Presently he returned to the table, collected his letters, moved slowly towards the door, and vanished. His wife's eyes followed him tenderly. Those eyes reminded me of my mother's, as, I verily believe, did all eyes that expressed affection. I crept nearer to her, and longed to press the white hand that lay so listless before me. "Will you walk out with us?" said Miss Trevanion, turning to me. I bowed, and in a few minutes I found myself alone. While the ladies left me, for their shawls and bonnets, I took up the newspapers which Mr Trevanion had thrown on the table, by way of something to do. My eye was caught by his own name; it occurred often, and in all the papers. There was contemptuous abuse in one, high eulogy in another; but one passage, in a journal that seemed to aim at impartiality, struck me so much as to remain in my memory; and I am sure that I can still quote the sense, though not the exact words. The paragraph ran somewhat thus:--