"He has doubtless some base motive," returned I smiling: "let us console ourselves with that reflection. But what have we here? Water-colour paintings! Why have you never told me you were an artist?" "I merely amuse myself with the paint-brush. I have had no lessons, of course, so that my perspective is quite Chinese." "Nay, but I recognize almost all these scenes!" "Well, you know, I have been nowhere else but at Fairburn, so that it is from thence I must take my subjects. The one you have there is taken from the bend in the stream beyond the Heronry." "It is admirable," said I; and indeed it was so like the scene of my dream, that it gave me a shudder. "Would you like to have it," replied Marmaduke carelessly. "You may take any that the portfolio contains. I only wish they were more worth your acceptance." "Thank you," said I nervously. "I will certainly take this one, then;" and I rolled the sketch tightly up, and placed it in my pocket. "But here is a pretty face! Why, Master Marmaduke, you have your secrets, I see; you have never mentioned to me this young lady. What beautiful hair! The eyes, too, how glorious, and yet how tender! It is surely not the lady whom we just met in the ar--" "Silence, sir!" cried Marmaduke, in a voice of thunder. His face was lurid with rage, and for the first time I remarked upon his forehead a faint reflection of the horse-shoe that made so terrible the brow of his uncle. "Do not speak of that wretched woman in the same breath with, with--" He did not complete the sentence, but added in his usual soft musical tones: "Pardon me, my friend; I am sorry to have been so hasty; but that picture is the portrait of my mother." "It was stupid in me not to have known that at once," said I. "The likeness is most remarkable." "But not the expression," returned he sadly. "I know that just now I looked like one of my own race. She was always an angel, even when she was upon earth." And the boy looked up with his hands clasped, as though he beheld her, through his tears, in heaven. "Did you paint that from a picture, Marmaduke?" "No, from memory. Sleeping or waking, I often see her sweet face." I had evidently raised by my thoughtlessness a long train of melancholy thoughts in my companion. The situation was embarrassing, and I did not know how to escape from it. As often happens with well-intentioned but blundering persons, I made the most inopportune remark that could be framed. Forgetting what I had heard of the infamous treatment which Mrs. Heath had received while under her brother-in-law's roof, I observed: "Your mother was once at Fairburn, was she not? That should at least make the Hall more endurable to you."