Goring followed up the stately, richly-carpeted, and warmly-lighted staircase the valet, who conducted him to his room, where he found his clothes already unpacked, his evening costume placed on a clothes-rail before a blazing fire, and, as he turned to the great mirror and magnificent toilette table, he thought, with a repining sigh, if something like these luxurious surroundings of which Jerry made so light were his, how different might be the fate or fortune of his engagement with Alison Cheyne. With soldier-like rapidity he and Jerry made the necessary changes in their costume; the latter tapped at his door, and together they descended to the spacious drawing-room, before the blazing fire in which, at the end of a long vista, apparently of pictures, pilasters, and window-draperies, two ladies were seated. Lady Julia Wilmot (she was an Earl's daughter) received them with a stately grace peculiar to herself, but she was too well-bred to display the least warmth of manner; and Jerry kissed her cheek, then her firm, white hand, and, after introducing 'Goring of Ours,' saluted his pretty cousin. Lady Julia was a fine-looking woman past her fortieth year, but still very handsome, her complexion brilliantly pure, her face and forehead without a line, for thought and care had been alike unknown to her since she left her cradle. Her delicately pencilled black eyebrows and general outline of features were decidedly what are deemed aristocratic, and she gave her hand to Goring, while receiving somewhat frigidly Jerry's kiss upon her white cheek. She was not emotional evidently, and deemed that any exhibition of pleasure on seeing her only son after an absence of a few months would be 'bad form.' Emily Wilmot was decidedly a pretty girl, with blond hair, light blue eyes, a rather _retroussé_ nose, a cherub-like mouth and dazzling skin. 'My cousin Emily,' said Jerry, 'Goring of Ours. I hope you will be great friends, but be careful, Emmy. Bevil is our regimental lady-killer--has passed the Guards' School of Instruction in the science of flirtation.' 'Absurd as ever, Jerry,' said his pretty cousin, tapping his hand with her feather fan, but beginning a conversation at once with Goring. Aware that Jerry would arrive that day about dinner time, Cousin Emily had made her toilette with unusual care. She wore a rich black silk trimmed with amber satin; ruffles of rich old lace fell around her tapered arms that were white as a lily, and made the delicate lace seem quite yellow. Bracelets of topazes clasped her slender wrists. The colours chosen became the blond character of her beauty--for she was more than pretty--and yet the whole costume, though rather extreme, was not too much for a family dinner.