“Yes, yes!” said Sir Edward quickly; “we'll have him down here; and, I say! YOU'LL come too?” The solicitor bowed. “And, by the way,” continued Sir Edward, “there was a girl too,--wasn't there? He has a sister, I believe?” “Yes, but he has left her in America.” “Ah, yes!--very good--yes!--of course. We'll have Lord Greyshott and Sir Roger and old Lady Everton,--she knows all about Sir Ashley and the family. And--er--is he young or old?” “About thirty, I should say, Sir Edward.” “Ah, well! We'll have Lady Elfrida over from the Towers.” Had Peter known of these preparations he might have turned back to Nonningsby without even visiting the old church in Ashley Park, which he had been told held the ashes of his ancestors. For during these four months the conviction that he was a foreigner and that he had little or nothing in common with things here had been clearly forced upon him. He could recognize some kinship in the manners and customs of the people to those he had known in the West and on the Atlantic coast, but not to his own individuality, and he seemed even more a stranger here--where he had expected to feel the thrill of consanguinity--than in the West. He had accepted the invitation of the living Atherly for the sake of the Atherlys long dead and forgotten. As the great quadrangle of stone and ivy lifted itself out of the park, he looked longingly towards the little square tower which peeped from between the yews nearer the road. As the carriage drove up to the carved archway whence so many Atherlys had issued into the world, he could not believe that any of his blood had gone forth from it, or, except himself, had ever entered it before. Once in the great house he felt like a prisoner as he wandered through the long corridors to his room; even the noble trees beyond his mullioned windows seemed of another growth than those he had known.