Miss Beaumont the elder received her pupil with ceremonious kindness. She looked at the girl with the keen glance of examination which becomes habitual to the eye of the schoolmistress; but the most severe scrutiny would have failed to detect anything unladylike or ungraceful in the deportment of Honoria Milford. "The young lady is charming," said Miss Beaumont, confidentially, as the baronet was taking leave; "any one could guess that she was an Eversleigh. She is so elegant, so patrician in face and manner. Ah, Sir Oswald, the good old blood will show itself." The baronet smiled as he bade adieu to the schoolmistress. He had told Honoria that policy had compelled him to speak of her as a distant relative of his own; and there was no fear that the girl would betray herself or him by any awkward admissions. Sir Oswald felt depressed and gloomy as he drove back to town. It seemed to him as if, in parting from his _protégée_, he had lost something that was necessary to his happiness. "I have not spent half a dozen hours in her society," he thought, "and yet she occupies my mind more than my nephew, Reginald, who for fifteen years of my life has been the object of so much hope, so many cares. What does it all mean? What is the key to this mystery?" * * * * * CHAPTER V. "EVIL, BE THOU MY GOOD." Reginald Eversleigh was handsome, accomplished, agreeable--irresistible when he chose, many people said; but he was not richly endowed with those intellectual gifts which lift a man to either the good or bad eminence. He was weak and vacillating--one minute swayed by a good influence, a transient touch of penitence, affection, or generosity; in the next given over entirely to his own selfishness, thinking only of his own enjoyment. He was apt to be influenced by any friend or companion endowed with intellectual superiority; and he possessed such a friend in the person of Victor Carrington, a young surgeon, a man infinitely below Mr. Eversleigh in social status, but whose talents, united to tact, had lifted him above his natural level. The young surgeon was a slim, elegant-looking young man, with a pale, sallow face, and flashing black eyes. His appearance was altogether foreign, and although his own name was English, he was half a Frenchman, his mother being a native of Bordeaux. This widowed mother now lived with him, dependent on him, and loving him with a devoted affection.