“Beg your pardon, sir,” said Brown. Though he had no objection to saying “not at home” when occasion demanded, he felt offended by being supposed to have done so falsely when his statement was true. “Master is not a gentleman that has himself denied when he is here. When I say not at home, I mean it. Sir William left Markham to-day.” “Left to-day!--that is very unlucky,” said the stranger. He stood quite disconcerted for the moment, and gnawed the ends of his moustache, still with the card half extended between his finger and thumb. “You are sure now,” he added in a conciliatory tone, “that it is not by way of getting rid of intruders? I am no intruder. I am--a relation.” “Very sorry, sir,” said Brown; “if you were one of the family--if you were Mr. Markham himself, I couldn’t say no different. Sir William, and my lady, and Miss Alice, they went to Oxford this morning by the early train.” “Mr. Markham himself--who is Mr. Markham?” he said, with a peculiar smile hovering about his mouth. “I am--a relation; but I have never been in England before, and I don’t know much about the family. Is Mr. Markham a son, or brother--perhaps brother to Sir William?” “The eldest son and heir, sir,” said Brown, with dignity. “You’ll see it in the _Baronetage of England_ all about him, ‘Paul Reginald, born May 6, 18--.’ He came of age this year.” The brown face of the stranger was full of varying expression while this was said--surprise, a half amusement, mingled with anger; emotions much too personal to be consistent with his ignorance of the family history. Strange, when he did not know anything about it, that he should be so much interested! Brown eyed him very keenly, with natural suspicion, though he did not know what it was he suspected. The little gentleman had closed his card-case, but still held it in his hand. “So,” he said, “the heir; then perhaps he is at home?” “There is nobody at home but the young ladies and the young gentlemen,” said Brown, testily. “If any of the grown-up ones had been in the house or about the place, I’d have said so.” Brown felt himself the master when the heads of the family were away, and this sort of persistency did not please him. “I’d like to see the young ladies and gentlemen,” said the stranger. “I’d like to see the house. You seem unwilling to let me in; but I am equally unwilling to come such a long distance and then go away----” “Well, sir,” said Brown, embarrassed, “Markham Chase, though it’s one of the finest places in the county, is not a show-place. I don’t say but what the gardener would take a visitor round the gardens, and by the fish-pond, and that, when the family are away; but it has never been made a practice to show the house. And it cannot even be said at present that the family are away. They’ve gone on some business as far as Oxford. They might be back, Sir William told me, in two days.”