There the cordiality of his reception surprised and pleased him. The Colonel was, as we have seen, very well disposed towards the son of his old friend and comrade-in-arms, and, moreover, was delighted to have a companion for the smoking-room and the morning lounge; one, too, who was such a capital listener; for to Roland the old man's stories were all new, and being good in themselves when not heard too often, the normal quiet of Ardleigh was apt to be disturbed by much uproarious mirth when the two got together. As for Clara, she seemed to have quite forgotten any little unpleasantness which had taken place when they last met, and had put on her most gracious and agreeable manner for their guest's benefit; and as she knew how to show to advantage when she chose, and was exceedingly clever and well informed, Roland found himself beginning to feel rather ashamed of his former bad opinion of her. Mrs Neville, who was somewhat of an invalid and of an argumentative--not to say contradictious--turn, forbore to snub him as she was wont to snub everything male under the age of fifty. "Young men want continually putting down, even when they are right"--was her creed, and, truth to say, she acted up to it most religiously. But in Roland's favour exception was made; whether it was that he was known to possess "a queer temper"--his father's own son, in fact--or that there was some ulterior reason for making his stay a particularly attractive one, his conversational remarks were allowed to pass unchallenged by his hostess to an extent which caused the girls to exchange frequent glances of surprise. Even Roy's presence was not only tolerated, but welcomed, and the woolly rascal, before he had been twenty-four hours at Ardleigh, ran in and out as he pleased, according to his usual way of making himself perfectly at home wherever he went. "By the way, how does our reformed black sheep, Steve Devine, get on in the capacity of a thief set to catch a thief?" asked Roland, as he and his host were smoking their after-breakfast cigars on the terrace one morning. "All right as yet," replied the latter, who being in want of an under-keeper, had, on Roland's representations partly, appointed the ex-poacher to that office a few days after his release from gaol--"in order to give him a fair chance of starting afresh," as the kind-hearted old soldier put it. The latter's friends, indeed, shook their heads over the arrangement, and prophesied that it would lead to no good--but the Colonel was not to be upset in his benevolent scheme once he had made up his mind. So Devine found himself installed in a snug berth with good wages, and if, being in such a fair way to doing well, he did not do it, why, he would have himself only to thank for it as an ungrateful rascal.