"I have a surprise for you," said Mrs Dalrymple when her Henry at length allowed the young man a little breathing time. "Guess who is here--ah yes, there she comes--she had just gone upstairs to fetch her fan when you came in. Roma dear, here is Captain Chancellor at last. I must manage to let you two sit next to each other at dinner, you will have so much home news to talk over. You have not met for some months, Roma tells me." The young lady addressed came forward quietly, with a slight look of amusement on her face, to greet the new-comer. "How funny it seems to find you here? Who would have thought of you turning up at Wareborough, Beauchamp?" "Not half so funny as _your_ being here, it strikes me," replied the gentleman. "Very lucky for me that it is so of course, but what you can find to amuse you here I cannot imagine." Their hostess had by this time turned away. "She--Mrs Dalrymple--is my cousin, you know," said Miss Eyrecourt, in a lower tone, with a very slight inclination of her head in the direction of the lady referred to. "I know that; but people are not obliged to visit their cousins if they bury themselves in such places. I daresay you are wondering at my not seeming more surprised to see you, are you not? The truth is, Gertrude mentioned it in a letter I got this morning, but what the reason was of your coming here she didn't say." The announcement of dinner prevented the young lady replying. It fell to Captain Chancellor's lot to escort his hostess to the dining-room, but, thanks to her good offices, Miss Eyrecourt was placed at his right hand. "You were asking the reason of my coming to Wareborough, were you not, Beauchamp?" she began, after calmly snubbing the first feeble effort of her legitimate companion of the dinner table--a Wareborough young gentleman--to enter into conversation. "I don't see why you should think it so extraordinary. I have been at my godmother's--up in the Arctic regions somewhere--in Cumberland, you know--for three weeks. Now I am on my way to Brighton for a fortnight. Gertrude is already there, you know, with the children, and we shall all go home together for Christmas. I don't suppose you ever learnt geography; but if you had, you would know that Wareborough is somewhere between the two points I name, which was lucky for me. Pearson objects to long journeys without a break." Captain Chancellor smiled. "Then why drag her up to Cumberland in the middle of winter? I can't imagine any motive strong enough to make you risk her displeasure." "Can't you?" said Roma, languidly, leaning back in her chair. "Not even god-daughterly devotion? Seriously, Beauchamp, you know Lady Dervock has ever so many thousand pounds to leave to somebody, and I don't see why I should not be that happy person. There is nothing I wouldn't do to get some money--a good comfortable sum of course."