Edgar was subjugated at once; he took off his hat and went reverently to the carriage-door, as if she had been a saint. “It is very pleasant that you should be here, and I am very glad to see you,” she said, in soft Scotch accents, in which there was a plaintive, almost a complaining tone. Edgar found himself immediately voluble in his regrets as to the annoyance of their uncomfortable reception, and, ere he knew what he was doing, had volunteered to go with Dr. Charles to the lodgings, to introduce him, and see whether they were satisfactory. He could not quite understand why he had done it, and thus associated himself with a man who did not impress him favourably, as soon as he had turned from the door of the cab, and lost sight of that beautiful face; of course he could not help it, he could not have refused his good offices to any stranger, he said to himself. He went on with his cousin to the cottage, where the landlady curtseyed most deeply to the gentleman from Tottenham’s, and was doubly anxious to serve people who were his friends; and before he left he had seen the beautiful new-comer, her little girl as always standing by her side leaning against her, seated on a sofa by a comfortable fire, and forgetting or seeming to forget, her fatigues. Dr. Charles could not smile so sweetly or look so interesting as his sister; he continued to inveigh against Dr. Franks, and his rashness in maintaining possession of the house. “But the poor thing could not help it,” said Margaret, in her plaintive voice, but not without a gleam of fun (if that were possible without absolute desecration) in her eyes. “They should not have stayed till the last moment; they should have made sure that nothing would happen,” the doctor said, hurrying in and out, and filling the little sitting-room with cloaks and wraps, and many small articles. Margaret made no attempt to help him, but she gave Edgar a look which seemed to say, “Forgive him! poor fellow, he is worried, and I am so sorry he has not a good temper.” Edgar did not know what to make of this angelical cousin. He walked away in the darkening, after he had seen them settled, with a curious feeling, which he could not explain to himself. Was he guilty of the meanness of being annoyed by the arrival of these relatives, who were in a position so different from that of his other friends? Was it possible that so paltry, so miserable a feeling could enter his mind--or what was it? Edgar could render no distinct account to himself of the sensation which oppressed him; but as he walked rapidly up the avenue in the quickly falling darkness, he felt that something had happened, which, somehow or other, he could not tell how, was to affect his future life. CHAPTER II. A youthful Solomon.