Mrs. Devereaux, for it was she, was young-looking--marvellously so for her years; she seemed to be quite a girl still; yet she was fully four-and-thirty, and the mother of two children. This youthful appearance doubtless arose from her very petite and slender figure; her strictly fashionable style of dress, and the piquante beauty that shone in the minute features of her charming little face. Her eyes were dark, yet full of light and sparkle, though their long lashes imparted a great softness of expression. Her eyebrows were very dark and well-defined--some might have deemed them too much so; but they imparted great character to her face. Her mouth and chin were perfect; her teeth like those of a child; and over all, her face, figure, and bearing, even to every motion of her hands and feet, Mrs. Devereaux was exquisitely lady-like. "At last--at last they come!" she exclaimed; "and yonder is my dear, dear Denzil, whom I have not seen for so many, many months," she added, as her eyes filled with tears, and her soft cheek flushed with all a mother's joy. As she uttered her thoughts aloud, a little basket-phaeton, drawn by two lovely cream-coloured Shetland ponies, was seen bowling down the avenue of pale green willows; a young lady was handling the ribbons of these Lilliputian steeds in a very masterly style; and beside her sat a young man, attired in fashionable travelling costume, who was alternately waving his cap and a newspaper, which he flourished so vigorously, that the sleek, brindled cattle grazing in the clover meadows close by, lifted their great brown eyes as if inquiringly, while the little drag, with its varnished wheels flashing, dashed along towards the villa, the walls of which shone white as snow in the evening sunlight. The phaeton was reined up before the portico, when a handsome lad of eighteen, with fine regular features, dark blue--almost black--eyes, and short fair curly hair, sprang out, and was instantly clasped to his mother's breast. "Oh, mamma--we have such news for you!" exclaimed the young lady, who seemed an exact reproduction of Mrs. Devereaux in height and face, though barely seventeen, with dark eyes and hair; "oh, such news!" she added, in high, girlish excitement, as she tossed her whip and reins to a groom who came promptly from the stable-yard, Derrick Braddon, once a soldier in Richard's regiment-- "Surely mamma knows all," said the youth; "have you not seen the _Gazette_?" "_Gazette_?" repeated Mrs. Devereaux, growing very pale, as she led her son caressingly into the little morning-room, where a hasty repast had been prepared for him and his sister, and which opened off a handsome little vestibule, hung with fox-brushes crossed, the trophies of many a hunting day, brought home by his father, "Captain Devereaux." "Denzil is now an officer, mamma," said the young girl, throwing off her hat and looking admiringly at her brother; "I was just in time to meet him at the train."