“Tell them that you are Francis Tredethlyn, nephew of Oliver Tredethlyn, and that you can bring forward plenty of witnesses to prove your identity, and so on, as soon as you can get back to England. I don’t suppose they’ll let you have your legacy till they see you. Ask them to tell you what the amount is, at any rate.” Mr. Lowther did not confine himself to giving his valet these hints upon the composition of his letter; he was good enough to stand behind the young man’s chair, and look over his shoulder as he wrote; but as Francis Tredethlyn’s penmanship was not of a very rapid order, the ensign’s eyes soon wandered from the page, and straying to an open division of the desk, lighted on something that looked like a water-coloured sketch, covered with silver paper. “Why, you sly dog,” he cried with a laugh, “you’ve got a woman’s picture in your desk!” Francis Tredethlyn blushed and looked very sheepish as he took the little water-coloured sketch out of its silver-paper envelope and handed it submissively to his master. “It’s my cousin Susan’s portrait, sir,” he said; “it was taken by a travelling artist, who came down our way one summer. It isn’t much of a likeness, but it pleases me to look at it sometimes, for I can fill up all that’s wanting in the face out of my own mind, and see my cousin smiling at me, as if I was at home again.” Mr. Lowther stood behind his servant’s chair looking at the portrait, while the soldier went on writing. It was not the work of a very brilliant artist; there was none of those deliciously careless touches, none of that transparent lightness, which a clever painter’s manipulation would have displayed. It was a stiff, laborious little portrait of a girl with hazel brown eyes and smooth banded brown hair, and an innocent childish mouth, rosy and fresh and smiling as a summer’s morning in the country. It was only the picture of a country girl, who seemed to have looked shyly at the artist as he painted her. “So that’s your cousin Susy,” said Mr. Lowther, laying the picture down upon the table by Tredethlyn’s elbow. “I shan’t stop while you address your letter, and I don’t want any thing more, so you can go to bed at once if you like. Good night.” The ensign took a candle from a little side-table as he spoke, lighted it at the lamp above Tredethlyn’s head, and went out of the room. Francis finished his letter, and placed it on the mantelpiece, where some letters of his master’s were lying ready for the next day’s mail. He did not go to bed at once, though it was late, and he was free to do so, but sat for some time with his cousin Susan Tredethlyn’s portrait in his hand, looking at the girlish face, and thinking of the changes that had come to pass in his old home.