Mr. Hampton received his guests with great _empressement_, welcomed them to Finglecombe, with the beautiful surroundings of which they were greatly delighted, and--as Patty's watchful and wondering eyes were upon him--he was not sorry when the Curate arrived, and he desired her to conduct the ladies to a room, and assist them to remove the costumes they had driven in. About the elder lady there was so little to remark that Patty scarcely noticed her, but her niece, Miss Anne Rookleigh, then nearer her thirtieth than her twentieth year, was brilliantly fair in complexion, with large and languishing eyes of that golden-hazel colour which so often goes with a duplicity of character, a magnificent figure, and masses of light chesnut coloured hair. Save that her bearing and expression were hard and cold, despite the languor in her eyes, the most severe connoisseur in female beauty could have found no fault with her, unless his glance fell upon her hands, which, for a lady so generally refined in aspect, were decidedly large and even coarse-looking. Since his mother had been borne away--it seemed so long ago now--in that grim funeral car with its black plumes, no ladies had ever been under their roof, till these two came, and now to Derval it seemed that his papa was far less gloomy than he had been--indeed, was quite gay; one of these ladies, Derval thought, eyed him curiously, even hostilely through her gold glass, and he, grasping the while his top and whip, looked steadily up in her proud face with a reconnoitring gaze that piqued her. The dinner passed over like any other. Greville Hampton was scrupulously attentive to both aunt and niece, but was so delicate and guarded in his manner, that Patty, who knew not the language of the eyes, could, as yet, obtain no clue to her suspicions; but, for the first time in his short life, the child was conscious of a something undefinable, he knew not what, in the manner of his father to himself, and felt that if the former did not quite repel his advances and wished-for caresses, he failed completely to respond to them, while under the golden hazel eyes of Miss Anne Rookleigh. Derval then drew to the side of her aunt, who was intently conversing with Mr. Asperges Laud, and whom he utterly failed to interest, on the subject of his pet canary, and the big Dorking hen, that had been mamma's, and laid so many eggs. At last the ladies rose, and quitting the table resolved to seek the garden, leaving their host and the curate to their wine and cigars. "You have a piano here, Greville," said Miss Rookleigh with a bright smile. "It is locked," said he uneasily. "But there is a key, of course?" "I have lost it," said he evasively; for the piano had been Mary's, and he could not yet have a stranger's fingers running over the keys where hers had brought forth the familiar notes.