“Not in itself. The house is nothing, but the pictures are good. It has been shut up for ever so long—five or six years at least. Lord Brackley fancies it does not suit him, so he lives almost always near his son, who is married and has a beautiful place belonging to his wife. Some day you must come with us and see Brackley Abbey. You are fond of pictures, I know.” “And understands a good deal more about them than either you or I, Margaret,” said Georgie good-humouredly. “To tell the truth, what I go to the Abbey for is to gossip with the fanny old housekeeper. We were there the other day, and I declare I thought I should never get away from her. She told me the history of every family in the county.” “Yes, indeed,” resumed Margaret, “she is a wonderful old body. By-the-by, Miss Vere, she had heard of your advent in the neighbourhood, and was very curious to hear all about you. She remembered your mother, she said.” “And I am sure she asked you if I was a beauty like my mother,” said Marion, laughing, “now didn’t she, Miss Copley? Only you didn’t like to say so, for you could not with any truth have said I was! Don’t you really think, Mr. Baldwin, it is rather a misfortune to have had a great beauty for one’s mother?” “As bad as being the son of a remarkably clever man of business?” suggested Geoffrey. “Very nearly, but not quite. For only think what terrible things have been entailed on you by your being your father’s son,” said Marion maliciously. Geoffrey was pleased to see her sufficiently at ease to be mischievous, and replied to her remark by a kindly glance. Then Georgie Copley took up the strain. “Old Mrs. What’s-her-name—what is her name, I always forget it?—the housekeeper, I mean, was full of a marriage that was to be in the family shortly. That is to say not in the family exactly but a near connection, Sir Ralph Severn, Lord Brackley’s step nephew. By-the-by, I dare say you know him, Geoffrey? He used to come here sometimes several years ago, before the Abbey was shut up. We were in the schoolroom, but I remember seeing him. It was long before he got the title.” “I never met him,” said Mr. Baldwin. “Whom is he going to marry?” “A sort of cousin of his own,” replied Georgie, “a Miss Vyse. A very beautiful girl, Mrs. Hutton—that’s her name—said. The old body made quite a romance out of it. This girl’s father, it appears, was in old days the lover of the present Lady Severn. But she was not allowed to marry him as she was an heiress. She used to be here a good deal with her step-brother when she was a girl, that is how Mrs. Hutton knows all about her. It sounds quite like a story-book, does it not? The children of the two poor things marrying, all these years after.” “Very romantic, indeed,” said Geoffrey. “Particularly as the lady is beautiful.”