Although Mr. Samuel Kingsley may have infinitely preferred, according to his own declaration, to be hung, drawn and quartered than to enter the great, old-fashioned doorway within which somewhere awaited him an encounter with one of his own flesh and blood, nobody would have guessed it from his demeanour. Long training in what James Dent, Junior, mentally characterized, as he watched Uncle Samuel make his entrance, as the art of bluffing—acquired by men of prominence in the world everywhere—enabled that gentleman to appear upon the scene with an expression of affability mingled with pleasure on his handsome countenance, and his accustomed bearing of dignity and distinction well in evidence. As it happened, Mr. Sylvester Kingsley was at the moment close by his brother Stephen’s side, although he had by no means intended to be there when his brother Samuel should arrive. How this happened it is possible that only the "sheep-dog" could have told. "Samuel, this is giving me great happiness," said Stephen, and held his brother’s strong hand for a moment in both his weak ones. Then he looked at Sylvester, who was on his farther side. Samuel also looked at Sylvester. Sylvester looked back at Samuel. Blades of steel could not have crossed with a sharper clang. "How are you, Sylvester?" inquired Samuel, and his glance dropped to Sylvester’s chin as he said it. His hand remained in Stephen’s, where it received a weak pressure, a quite involuntary one, born of anxiety. "How are you, Samuel?" inquired Sylvester in return, and his glance lowered to the expensive scarfpin in Samuel’s neckwear. Jim Dent said "Good heavens!" somewhere inside of him, and the incident was closed by his uncle Sylvester’s rising and walking away out of the room. The brothers had spoken—if this were speech. They had not shaken hands. An apprehending onlooker, betting on the probabilities, would have staked a considerable sum on the proposition that they would not shake hands within the next twenty-four hours—or twenty-four years. "Well, well—here’s Anne!" cried Jim Dent joyfully. He had been looking about him for first-aid to his uncle Stephen’s wounded heart. Anne was no longer of the group of children who were accustomed to leap upon Cousin Jim and demand instant sport with him. Anne, being now eighteen, and lately returned from a two-years’ absence at a boarding-school somewhere abroad, had allowed James Dent, Junior, to be in the house for a full half-hour before she emerged from some upstairs retreat and came to greet him. Being Mrs. Sam’s eldest daughter she was naturally extraordinarily pretty, looking much as her mother had looked twenty years before. As Mrs. Sam was still a beauty, and as she was his favourite aunt—by marriage—it will be easy to imagine that when her nephew James had greeted her he had not failed to inquire for Anne. Still, he had had no possible idea that the change in Anne was going to be so great.