What if even now, at the eleventh hour, as it were, she turned prudently back, and concealed the fact that she was the true Lady Lamorna--that her son was a peer of the realm--and let him and Sybil pass through life as humble Devereaux, content to earn their bread as best they could? But to see Downie Trevelyan, the author of that harsh and most insulting letter, occupying the place of her Denzil--no--no! a thousand times no! Some such fears had been occurring to Sybil, who now said, in a low voice, as they drew near the stately gate of Rhoscadzhel, "I doubt, dearest mamma, whether this is a wise proceeding on our part; if we have the legal right to call ourselves Trevelyans, that right should be placed for proof in legal hands." "If we have--" began Constance, impetuously, and then became silent, for she felt that the views of her daughter were, perhaps, the most correct. The elaborate iron gate, and its tall granite pillars, each supporting a grotesque _Koithgath_, surmounted by a coronet, were left behind, and they proceeded along the stately avenue by which we have so lately seen Richard passing as chief mourner at the funeral of the old lord; and now, as the porte-cochère (which bore a double hatchment) was approached, came a new perplexity to the mind of Constance. How was she to announce herself? As "Lady Lamorna," where there was already one who called herself so; simply as "Mrs. Devereaux," or as "a lady wishing an interview with Lord Lamorna"? But from the utterance of his name in this instance she shrunk. The pampered servants, on seeing that the approaching vehicle was only a carriage hired from the neighbouring inn, and not an equipage having coats of arms and showy liveries, were somewhat slow in answering the summons at the bell; but as the hall door stood open, and, luckily for the perplexed Constance, Mr. Jasper Funnel, the solemn, portly, and intensely respectable-looking butler, was lingering there, she asked if she could "see his master." Now this was a mode to which Mr. Jasper Funnel was all unused, and he might have been disposed to summon "Jeames" or "Chawles" to attend to her; but there was now a hauteur in the bearing of Constance that thoroughly bewildered, if it failed to awe him. "Master, mum?" he stammered; "his lordship is at home, but engaged with General Trecarrel--I can take in your card, however." "I have not my card-case with me." "What name, then?" "It matters not--just say----" "Perhaps, mum, relations of the family?" suggested Funnel, perceiving the depth of mourning worn by the two ladies. "Yes--near relations, indeed," replied Constance, restraining her tears with difficulty. The man of bins and vintages, who thought he knew the branches of the Trevelyan family through all their ramifications, looked still more perplexed; however, he said, with a still lower bow,