“What good can old Miss Eastwood do?” said Dick, who felt the authenticity of his own report to be called in question; and, indeed, old Miss Eastwood could do no good; to write to her to get further information seemed a kind of ease to the excitement of the moment. Before the letter was finished Mr. Vane came in, to make an innocent call, and hearing where Dick had been and how he had caught such a dreadful cold, proceeded to discourse upon Sterborne, lightly and easily, as strangers often do upon points of deadly interest to their hearers. “I have been all over that country,” he said; “I used to know the Eastwoods, your relations, very well; indeed, I have a little box of a place close to Sterborne, which my sister is rather fond of. The Minster is the great attraction. Out of St. Peter’s at Rome, I don’t know a service so high--and she goes in for that sort of thing.” “Do you know anybody called Batty?” cried Nelly in her haste. She had come to have a great confidence in the man who looked at her so kindly, with eyes that had a certain regret in them--regret which flattered and consoled her somehow, she could not tell why. “Ellinor!” cried Mrs. Eastwood in dismay; but it was too late. “Batty, oh yes, I know Batty. He is very well known to the ingenuous youth of that part of England,” said Mr. Vane, “though I admire and wonder to think you should ask for him. Stop a moment, however, I know; he has a beautiful daughter.” “Then she is beautiful!” cried Nelly. “Red and white, flesh and blood--big Dutch doll of a thing,” cried Dick, thrusting himself into the conversation, in eager self-defence, without thinking of the contradiction in his words. “I suppose we are all flesh and blood,” said Mr. Vane, “but I rather incline to Dick’s view of the matter, on the whole. At the same time she is a beautiful creature. I don’t believe she has any more soul than Mahomet would allow; but she is the perfection of flesh and blood. By the way, she was once said to be engaged to one of the Eastwoods, I forget which, not Sir Geoffrey, but one of his brothers. I don’t know how it was broken off.” “I heard of that too,” said Dick, putting on an air of injured virtue; “you listen to all he says, but you don’t put any faith in me.” “No, I can’t tell you exactly how it was broken off,” Mr. Vane went on, trying to recollect the details which might, he thought, interest in an easy way the relations of Charlie Eastwood. “But these stories are always disagreeable,” he added, “there is sure to be something discreditable on one side or the other. It is a blessing, however, to know that he did get out of it, which was the chief thing to be desired.”