Leaving him, however, to make this alteration, and to send off his answer to Mrs. Darlington's invitation, we shall now beg leave to follow home Captain Delaware and his sister, and--as every thing in a tale like the present should be as clear as possible, without the slightest mystery or absurd concealment--shall explain a few things that may have hitherto appeared strange in the conduct of that family. The spot at which Burrel had that morning met his travelling companion, was not more than a quarter of a mile from the mansion, and the brother and sister walked on directly towards one of the smaller doors in the park wall, and, passing through, turned their steps homewards. They proceeded, however, in silence; for there was something evidently in their rencontre with Burrel unpleasant to them both, nor was that unpleasant sensation perhaps relieved by the aspect of their paternal dwelling, or the grounds that surrounded it. Without entering into the painful details of a family's decay, it is sufficient to say, that the whole place bore the character--not of neglect--but of means incompetent to ward off the constant, unremitting, insidious assaults of time. They passed a temple in the park, which had been built in imitation of some famous specimen of Grecian architecture, and now came nearer still to the original by its decay. A large mass of the frieze had fallen, and over the green and disjointed steps the brambles were shooting their long thorny arms. The path itself, too, which wound on towards the house, was half overgrown with grass; and where an effort to hoe it up had been begun, it had speedily been abandoned, from the necessity of employing the man in some more useful service. The mansion, too, more than half closed, had about it all--not the aspect of ruin, for it had by no means reached that pitch--but a look of desertion and of poverty which contrasted painfully with the splendour of the original design. To the eye of Miss Delaware and her brother, all this was customary; but yet it struck them both, after their meeting with Burrel, perhaps more forcibly than it had ever done before; and there was something like a sigh escaped the lip of each, as, opening the large door, they passed on into what had once been a splendid vestibule. The day was a sultry one, and the door of a room, entering immediately upon the hall, was open when Captain Delaware and his sister entered. The step of Miss Delaware as she walked on caught the ear of some one within, and a voice, in the tone of which there was the slightest possible touch of impatience, was heard exclaiming "Blanche! is that you, my love?"