“Sir Augustus,” she said, and nobody knew what it cost her to give him this title; all the blood ebbed away from her face: “Sir Augustus, the house is your own, it appears. What I can put up with has nothing to do with it.” “Yes,” he said, tranquilly, bowing in acknowledgment, “it is my own; but it has been yours for a great many years. Why can’t we be friends? I can’t help being their brother, you know, whatever happens.” Alice had been sitting with her hand over her eyes. She had a special enmity towards this interloper; but now she took courage to look at him. They all looked at him, distinct among the little group of female faces. He was _dans son droit_, and it is impossible to tell how much the certainty that all belonged to him, that he was no mere claimant, but the proud possessor of the place, changed the aspect of the little gentleman, even to those who had most reason to be wounded by it. It gave him a dignity he had never possessed before, and a magnanimity too. When he saw Alice looking at him, he left the little girls and came towards her, holding out his hands. He was a different man in this interior from what he was outside. “I should be very fond of you if you would let me,” he said. “Alice, though you are Paul’s particular sister, you can’t help being my sister too; and there is some one else who is a friend of mine, who has been very kind to me,” the little man said significantly, sinking his voice. What did he mean? Though she did not know what he meant; Alice felt a flame of colour flush over her cheeks in spite of herself. “We are not monsters to disregard such an appeal,” said Lady Markham. “Whatever may happen, and however we may feel, we must all acknowledge that you mean to be very kind. You will not ask us to say more just now. If you will send for your things, I will give orders to have your rooms prepared at once.” “Mamma!” they all cried, in a chorus of wonder. Alice with something like indignation, Bell and Marie with an excitement which was half pleasure: for this was novelty, at least, if nothing else, which always commends itself to the mind of youth.