“I like chitter-chatter,” said Edgar; “and besides, I want to know who the people are. Who is that pretty girl on Mr. Pimpernel’s left hand? You must recollect I know nobody, and am quite a stranger in my own place.” “Oh, Mr. Arden, that is Miss Molyneaux, Mrs. Molyneaux’s eldest daughter,” said the gracious hostess, indicating the lady on her left hand, who smiled and coloured, and looked at Edgar with friendly eyes. “She _is_ pretty--such a complexion and teeth! Did you notice her teeth, Mr. Arden? They are like pearls. My Alice has nice teeth, but I always say they are nothing to compare to Mary Molyneaux’s. And that’s Mr. Arden, your namesake, beside her. He is considered a very handsome man.” “Do you approve of personal gossip, Mr. Arden?” said Mrs. Buxton, breaking in; but Edgar was too much interested to be stopped, even by motives of civility. “Mr. Arden, my namesake! Then that explains it.” He said these last words, not aloud, but within himself, for now he could see that the face which this man’s face recalled to him was that of his own sister, Clare. It gave him the most curious sensation, moving him almost to anger. A stranger whom he knew nothing of, who was nothing to him, to resemble Clare! It looked like profanity, desecration. After all, there was something evidently in the Arden blood--something entirely wanting to himself--a secret influence--which he, the first of the name, did not share. “Not only your namesake,” said Lord Newmarch, in his thin voice, much to Mrs. Buxton’s disgust. The young lord was very philosophical, and full to overflowing with questions of political importance, and the progress of the world, and all the knowledge of the nineteenth century; but still he was patrician born, and could not resist a genealogical question. “Not only your namesake. He is old Arthur Arden’s son, who was your father’s first cousin. He is the nearest relative you have except your sister; and, as long as you don’t have sons of your own, he is the next heir.”