“Ah!” said Edgar, as if he had sustained a blow. He could not explain how it was that he received the information thus. Why should he object to Arthur Arden, or be anything but pleased to see the next in the succession--the man who, of all the men in the world, should be most interesting to him? “The same blood runs in our veins,” he tried to say to himself, and gazed down curiously at the end of the table, raising thereby a little pleasurable excitement in the bosom of Mrs. Molyneaux, who sat opposite to him. “He is struck with my Mary,” the mother thought; and Edgar was so good a match that it was no wonder she was moved a little. Fortunately, Mary knew nothing about it, but sat by the other Arden, and chattered as much as Gussy Thornleigh had done, and could not help thinking what a pity it was so handsome a man, and one so like the family, should not be the true heir. “I have been over Arden Hall, and you are so like the portraits,” Mary Molyneaux was saying at that very moment, while Lord Newmarch explained who her companion was to Edgar. “The present Mr. Arden is not a bit like them. I can’t help feeling as if you must be the rightful Squire.” “I have got only the complexion, and not the lands,” said Mr. Arthur Arden. “It is a poor exchange. And this is the first time I ever saw my cousin. He does not know me from Adam. We are not a very friendly race; but I know Clare.” “Oh, Miss Arden? Don’t you think she is quite beautiful--but awfully proud?” said the girl. “She will not know the Pimpernels; though all the best people have called on them, she will never call. Don’t you think it is horrid for a girl to be so proud?” “She has the family spirit,” said her kinsman, with a look which Mary, in her innocence, did not comprehend. The talk at the table at Thorne was more amusing, but perhaps there was a deeper interest in what was then going on at the Red House. CHAPTER XV.