"I fancied that I perceived some such expression myself, and consequently, at his years, was the less alarmed, or shall I say shocked, when in the very act of speaking to me, a sudden spasm came over his features--a deep sigh, almost a faint cry escaped him, and he sank back in his chair, when just about to write. See, there is the pen on the floor, exactly where it fell from his relaxed fingers." Richard's honest eyes were filled with tears, and mechanically he picked up the pen and laid it on the desk. "Writing, say you, Downie; and what was he writing?" "Oh, I cannot say--a letter to his steward, I believe." "But--I see no letter." "He was just about to commence it," replied Downie, whose usually pale face coloured a little. "And that paper you pocketed in such haste, Downie, what was it?" "Nothing, Richard, that can concern you (by-the-by, you are Lord Lamorna now!) or that fair one whose portrait you exhibit so ostentatiously just now." Richard started, alike at the title so suddenly accorded to him by his brother, and at the reference to the portrait, for in the confusion or haste, as he bent over his dead uncle, a little miniature, which he wore at a ribbon round his neck, depicting a very beautiful dark-eyed woman, had slipped from his vest, and with an exclamation of annoyance, he hastened to conceal it. "_Who_ is the lady, Richard?" asked Downie. "As yet, that must remain my secret," replied Richard; "a little time, my dear fellow, and we shall have no mysteries among us." Downie, secretly, was not ill-pleased by this diversion, in which Richard forgot the subject of the paper. The doctor soon came--a village practitioner--fussy and full of importance; but nevertheless skilful; and he decided that disease of the heart--a malady under which, though ignorant of its existence, the deceased had long laboured--had proved the immediate cause of death. The poor shrivelled remains of the proud old lord were conveyed to the principal bed-room of the mansion, and there laid in a species of state, upon a four-posted bed, that rose from a daïs, and was all draped with black. His coronet and Order of the Bath, together with that of St. Anne, which he received when ambassador in Russia, were deposited at his feet upon a crimson velvet cushion, that was tasseled with gold; while two tall footmen in complete livery with long canes draped with crape, mounted guard beside the coffin day and night, to their own great disgust and annoyance, till the time of the funeral, of which Richard took the entire charge; and which, in a spirit of affection and good taste, he resolved should be in all respects exactly what the deceased peer would have wished it to be. The features of the latter became, for a time, young and beautiful in their manliness and perfect regularity, while all the lines engraven there by Time were smoothed out, if not completely effaced.