Then the luncheon bell rang, and I was conducted to my room by a blushing youth in livery. I was burning to know who “Lilia” was—for that brief introduction was all that I had had—but I could not ask the _gauche_ young footman (evidently a “new hand”). So I washed my hands and wondered, as I gazed round the quaint old room. It must be an old house, although from the lawn it looked modern, and foreign, with its brilliantly white walls and bright green shutters. The flooring, though spotless, was old; the ceiling low. There was a fourposter of carved wood black with age, and the mahogany furniture, which shone like mirrors, was of an ancient pattern. White dimity hung about, and there was a fresh scent of lavender. Going downstairs, I noticed that the shallow stairs were of old oak, likewise the balustrade; but the dining-room, to which Sir Roderick, who met me in the hall, escorted me, was of newer fashion—a square room with massive furniture, and hung with paintings. “All Pyms,” said my host, following my eyes as, seated at “Lilia’s” right, I ate my soup. Then ensued some talk about the various dark visages that frowned down from the black canvases. To all appearance, misanthropy ran in the family. Most of these bilious-looking ancestors seemed to have done something strange; and the nearer they had drifted to contempt of social law, the more unctuously Sir Roderick related their exploits. Meanwhile the gentle Lilia listened with wide-open eyes and evident interest. “But that? Surely that one is not a Pym!” I said, indicating a portrait in an oval Florentine frame that hung conspicuously over the mantelpiece—in fact, in solitary glory, while the other portraits were somewhat huddled together. “And pray, why not?” asked my host dryly, after a moment’s pause. I looked again. A sunbeam lighted up the laughing face of a fair young man, with large blue eyes and the very much-curved lips which always produce the effect of a sneer. To me they are painful, recalling the cruel _risus sardonicus_ which I have never seen without distress. “Why not?” I repeated, stupidly. “Oh! because he is so unlike all the others, I suppose.” “Do you not see any likeness?” he quietly asked presently, after he had carved a fowl and insisted on giving me the breast. I looked around. “Oh, not to the pictures—to Lilia!” he cried, impatiently. “No, I cannot say I do,” I said, glancing at my hostess. I smiled; but I did not feel at all like smiling. My—was it dread?—to find so young a girl the wife of so old a man made me flinch at any suggestion which strengthened such a possibility. “They are both Pyms!” he said, quite irritably. “You have evidently no eye for likenesses. Of course, there are dark Pyms and fair Pyms. The fair Pyms are upstairs in a corridor.” “Women,” said the fair Lilia explanatorily to me. “Papa dislikes women so much, he won’t have their portraits about him.”