The squire was not half an inch taller, a little beardless man with withered red cheeks, and brown hair which was curiously like a wig. Barbara had doubted through two or three interviews whether it was a wig or not, and she had been pleased when he talked to her, because it gave her an excuse for looking fixedly in the direction of his head. At last he arrived one day with his hair very badly cut, and a bit of plaster on his ear, where the village barber had snipped it, after which she took no further interest in him. Happily her previous attention had given him a very high opinion of her intelligence and good taste, and Mr. Masters remained her loyal admirer. "A very sensible girl, Miss Strange," he would say, and Mr. Pryor would reply "Yes, yes," and then add doubtfully that he feared she was rather flighty, and that her indifference to serious questions was much to be regretted. This meant that Barbara would not take a class in the Sunday-school, and cared nothing about old books and tombstones. The dinner was not a conversational success. Mr. Masters, on being introduced to Reynold Harding, was amazed at the likeness to the old family, and repeatedly exclaimed, "God bless my soul! How very remarkable!" Harding looked self-conscious and uncomfortable, and the vicar said "Yes, exactly so." The little squire's eyes kept wandering from the young man's face to the wall and back again, as if he were referring him to all the family portraits. By the time they had finished their fish the resemblance was singularly heightened. Reynold was scowling blackly, and answering in the fewest possible words, which seemed to grate against each other as he uttered them. Mr. Hayes, who did not care twopence for his young guest's feelings, looked on with indifferent eyes, and would not interfere, while Barbara made a gallant little attempt to divert attention from Reynold's ill-temper by talking with incoherent liveliness to the clergyman. As ill-luck would have it, Mr. Masters, who had more than once addressed his new acquaintance as "Mr. Rothwell," suddenly grasped the fact that he was not Rothwell at all, but Harding, and began to take an unnecessary interest in the Harding pedigree. He was so eager in his investigation that he did not see the young man's silent fury, but went on recalling different Hardings he had known or heard of. "That might be about your grandfather's time," he reckoned.