There was a moment's silence. Then she spoke more lightly-- "Dear Lord Blythe," she said--"Now that you know so much may I tell you my own story? It will not take long! Come and sit here--yes!"--and she placed a comfortable arm-chair for him, while she drew Miss Leigh gently down on the sofa and sat next to her--"It is nothing of a story!--my little life is not at all like the lives lived by all the girls of my age that I have ever met or seen--it's all in the past, as it were,--the old, very old past!--as far back as the days of Elizabeth!" She laughed, but there were tears in her eyes--she brushed them away and holding Miss Leigh's hand in her own, she told with simple truth and directness the narrative of her childhood's days--her life on Briar Farm--how she had been trained by Priscilla to bake, and brew, and wash and sew,--and how she had found her chief joy and relaxation from household duties in the reading of the old books she had found stowed away in the dower-chests belonging to the "Sieur Amadis de Jocelin." As she pronounced the name with an unconsciously tender accentuation Lord Blythe interrupted her. "Why, that's a curious thing! I know a rather clever painter named Amadis de Jocelyn--and surely you were dancing with him on the evening I first met you?" A wave of rosy colour swept over her cheeks. "Yes!--that is what I was just going to tell you!" she said. "He is another Amadis de Jocelyn!--and he is actually connected with a branch of the same family! HIS ancestor was the brother of that very Amadis who lies buried at Briar Farm! Is it not strange that I should have met him!--and he is going to paint my portrait!" "Is he indeed!" and Lord Blythe did not look impressed--"I thought he was a landscape man." "So he is," she explained, with eagerness--"But he can do portraits--and he wishes to make a picture of me, because I have been a student of the books written by one of his ancient line. Those books taught me all I know of literature. You see, it is curious, isn't it?" "It is," he agreed, rather hesitatingly--"But I've never quite liked Jocelyn--he's clever--yet he has always struck me as being intensely selfish,--a callous sort of man--many artists are." Her eyes drooped, and her breath came and went quickly. "I suppose all clever men get self-absorbed sometimes!" she said, with a quaint little air of wisdom--"But I don't think he is really callous--" She broke off, and laughed brightly--"Anyhow we needn't discuss him--need we? I just wanted to tell you what an odd experience it has been for me to meet and to know someone descended from the family of the old French knight whose spirit was my instructor in beautiful things! The little books of his own poems were full of loveliness--and I used to read them over and over again. They were all about love and faith and honour--" "Very old-fashioned subjects!" said Lord Blythe, with a slight smile--"And not very much in favour nowadays!"