It was very neatly and prettily put on the part of Sir Sykes, and the appeal was all the more effective because of the quietude and cool indifference of the baronet’s ordinary manner. He was a cold, unemotional person, in the everyday routine of life; and hence the quivering of his lips, the faltering of his voice, added much of pathos to what might otherwise have seemed commonplace. As for the answer to the question asked, could there be a doubt of it! It is to the credit of a woman’s heart that it always, when a plea is well urged, responds to the Open Sesamé of compassion. They may not, as men do, seek out hidden wrongs to be righted and unseen pangs to be assuaged. But the distress that lies at their door they seek to comfort; and had the young ladies of Carbery been very much poorer than they were, their reply to their father’s question would have been as generously outspoken. ‘By all means, yes, papa, let us have the poor girl here‒this Miss‒Willis I think is her name; and we will try to make her happy. How sad!’ And Blanche and Lucy were all but in tears over the woes of this Anglo-Indian orphan; while Jasper, hiding his face behind his coffee-cup, reflected that ‘the governor’ was a cool hand, and did his little bit of acting in a manner worthy of Barnum himself. In most houses of sufficient dignity to own a special letter-bag, the temporary office of post-master is publicly discharged. The old Earl of Wolverhampton, for instance, found it pleasant to sort and classify the motley mass of correspondence which came daily to High Tor; but he would almost as soon have opened a servant’s letter as have opened the bag otherwise than in the presence of guests and kindred. Carbery Chase, however, was not High Tor, and Sir Sykes Denzil was a very different family chief from his noble neighbour. The baronet was an early riser, as are many men who have spent much of their lives in India; and he chose that the post-bag should be brought to him in the library an hour or so before the usual assembling for breakfast. Jasper, who was of a suspicious temper, resented this exercise of parental authority; but he was wrong. There may have been passages in Sir Sykes’s life which would not, if published, have redounded to his credit, but tampering with letters was not congenial to him. He never gave a second glance to any envelope addressed to Captain Denzil or the captain’s sisters, and was as loyal a custodian of the family correspondence as any gentleman in the whole county of Devon. There was this advantage in the baronet’s habit as regarded the post-bag, that nobody could tell what letters Sir Sykes received or when he did receive them. There are many of us, and those not the least loved or esteemed, whose letters are as it were public property, and with whom reticence on the subject of a missive newly received by the post would diffuse disquiet and perhaps dismay through the domestic circle.