“I come from--Lancashire,” he said, with a sort of hurried abandonment of the subject. Lionel Brotherton had begun to stare at him too. He felt himself in an atmosphere charged with electricity of some sort, and thought with alarm, that some one or other of this dangerous party might put a moral pistol to his head and accuse him at any moment of his false name. He returned to the subject of his wife and family, which was safer in every way. “You know that Mr. Bonamy will not let his daughter go to England,” he said, “because it was fatal to her mother. It is her great grievance; by dint of being debarred from it there is nothing she wants so much to do.” “And you--have you nothing to say? Is she so delicate?” Lady Brotherton asked. “Not delicate at all, thank heaven! I have a great deal to say; but I agree. I came under a solemn promise before I was allowed to marry her, and then I have no wish to take her to England--England--” he said, with a little sternness, “has no particular attraction to me. All the happiness of my life is here.” “But that is a hard thing to say of your home, Mr. Oliver.” “My home--is here,” he said. What did that girl mean by watching him so? He felt that he was talking vindictively at her, though all that he desired was to ignore her, and escape the scrutiny of her eyes, which made him angry and alarmed, both together. All this time Sir John had been breaking in at intervals, expressing with a great many sibillations his pleasure in the prospect of dining with “Old Bonamy.” “Old Bonamysh sh’a very old friend; alwaysh liked him, and hish father before him,” the old man cried. “N’ash for bein’ able to dine out, never wash better, never wash better.” This came in at intervals as a kind of chorus, while Lady Brotherton kept up the central strain of friendly commonplace, as unconscious of Lydia’s eager eyes over her shoulder, as of the vague, alarmed curiosity and anxiety that had roused the girl out of herself. “It was startling to hear his name,” said Lionel, when after awhile, as quickly as politeness permitted, the visitor took his leave. “What was there peculiar about his name? Oliver! it is not a bad name,” Lady Brotherton said. “It is not the Oliver, but the Isaac Oliver. Lydia was startled too. It is a name we know very well in the Fell-country,” Lionel said. He was able to treat the subject more lightly than Liddy, on whom, in her excitement, this new and sudden fire had caught at once. He told his mother all about Isaac Oliver, with details that quite satisfied her as to the origin of the stranger’s startled looks and apparent excitement when he heard Liddy’s name.