BY THE SAME AUTHOR (_Leisure-Hour Series_) THE WOOING O'T WHICH SHALL IT BE? RALPH WILTON'S WEIRD. _LEISURE HOUR SERIES_ RALPH WILTON'S WEIRD _A NOVEL_ BY MRS. ALEXANDER AUTHOR OF "THE WOOING O'T" AND "WHICH SHALL IT BE?" [Illustration: Logo] NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 1875 JOHN F. TROW & SON, PRINTERS, 205-213 EAST 12TH ST., NEW YORK. RALPH WILTON'S WEIRD. CHAPTER I. The yellow sunlight of a crisp October day was lighting up the faded though rich hangings, and the abundant but somewhat blackened gilding, of a large study or morning-room in one of the stately mansions of Mayfair, nearly fourteen years ago. Bookcases and escritoires, writing-tables and reading-tables more or less convenient, easy-chairs, print-stands furnished with well-filled portfolios, pictures, bronzes, all the signs and tokens of wealth, were there, but nothing new. An impress of extinct vitality was stamped upon the chamber and all it contained. The very fire burned with a dull, continuous glow, neither flaming nor crackling. On one side of this fire, his back to the light, in a high leathern chair, sat an old man. Originally slight in frame, he now looked attenuated. His blue, brass-buttoned coat, though evidently from the hands of an artist, hung loosely upon him. His thin gray hair was carelessly brushed back from a brow not high but peculiarly wide, a straight, refined nose, a square-cut chin, a thin-lipped, slightly cruel mouth, a tint of the deadliest pallor--all these combined to make his countenance at once attractive and repellent. There was a certain dignity in his attitude as he leaned against the side of the large chair, in which he was almost lost, one thin, small white hand resting on the arm of his seat, the other playing, in a manner evidently habitual, with a couple of seals hanging in by-gone fashion from a black ribbon. He was gazing at the fire, and listening to a meek looking semi-genteel young man, who, seated at a table with a neatly folded packet of papers before him, was reading aloud from a letter. But the lecture was interrupted. The door was thrown open by an archdeaconal butler, who announced, in a suppressed voice and impressive manner, "Colonel Wilton, my lord." Whereupon entered a soldierly looking man, above middle height, his broad shoulders and compact waist, duly displayed by an incomparably fitting frock-coat, closely buttoned, and worn with the indescribable carriage that life-long assured position and habitual command only can bestow. A bold, sunburnt, and somewhat aquiline face, a pair of eagle-like brown eyes, and plenty of red-brown wavy hair, whisker, and moustache, entitled the possessor to be termed by partial comrades "a good-looking fellow." The old nobleman stood up, and, raising his cold, steely, keen blue eyes, with an extension of his thin lips intended for a smile, held out his slight, fine hand.