"You're adding to its charms!" I interrupted. "Everything sounds delightful!" She looked at me half-inquiringly, and then smiled a little. "I believe you're pulling my leg," she said. "However--we'll see. But you don't look as if you would be afraid--and you're not a bit like what I thought you'd be, either." "What did you think I should be?" I asked, amused at her candour. "Oh, I don't know--a queer, snuffy, bald-pated old man, like Mr. Cazalette," she replied. "Booky, and papery, and that sort of thing. And you're quite--something else--and young!" "The frost of thirty winters have settled on me," I remarked with mock seriousness. "They must have been black frosts, then!" she retorted. "No!--you're a surprise. I'm sure Uncle Francis is expecting a venerable, dry-as-dust sort of man." "I hope he won't be disappointed," I said. "But I never told him I was dry as dust, or snuffy, or bald----" "It's your reputation," she said quickly. "People don't expect to find such learning in ordinary young men in tweed suits." "Am I an ordinary young man, then?" I demanded. "Really----" "Oh, well, you know what I mean!" she said hastily. "You can call me a very ordinary young woman, if you like." "I shall do nothing of the sort!" said I. "I have a habit of always calling things by their right names, and I can see already that you are very far from being an ordinary young woman." "So you begin by paying me compliments?" she retorted with a laugh. "Very well--I've no objection, which shows that I'm human, anyhow. But here is my uncle." I had already seen Mr. Francis Raven advancing to meet us; a tall, somewhat stooping man with all the marks of the Anglo-Indian about him: a kindly face burnt brown by equatorial suns, old-fashioned, grizzled moustache and whiskers; the sort of man that I had seen more than once coming off big liners at Tilbury and Southampton, looking as if England, seen again after many years of absence, were a strange country to their rather weary, wondering eyes. He came up with outstretched hands; I saw at once that he was a man of shy, nervous temperament. "Welcome to Ravensdene Court, Mr. Middlebrook!" he exclaimed in quick, almost deprecating fashion. "A very dull and out-of-the-way place to which to bring one used to London; but we'll do our best--you've had a convoy across the park, I see," he added with a glance at his niece. "That's right!" "As charming a one as her surroundings are delightful, Mr. Raven," I said, assuming an intentionally old-fashioned manner. "If I am treated with the same consideration I have already received, I shall be loth to bring my task to an end!" "Mr. Middlebrook is a bit of a tease, Uncle Francis," said my guide. "I've found that out already. He's not the paper-and-parchment person you expected."