So he wished to introduce her to his sisters! What did that mean? If the Deyncourts were ever so high they could not sneer at Lord Northmoor's sisters. Then she thought of many a novel, and in real life, of what she believed respecting that lost lover of Miss Morton's. And later in the day Tom Brady lounged up to Northmoor Cottage, and leaning with one elbow on the window-sill, while the other arm held away the pipe he had just taken from his lips, he asked if they would give him a cup of tea, the whole harbour was so full of such beastly, staring cads that there was no peace there. One ought to give such places a wide berth at Whitsuntide. 'I wonder you did not,' said Ida, as she hastened to compound the tea. 'Forgot it,' he lazily droned, 'forgot it. Attractions, you know,' and, as she brought the cup to the window, with a lump of sugar in the tongs, 'when sugar fingers are--' and the speech ended in a demonstration at the fingers that made Ida laugh, blush, and say, 'Oh, for shame, Mr. Brady!' 'You had better come in, Mr. Brady,' called Mrs. Morton. 'You can't drink it comfortably there, and you'll be upsetting it. We are down in the dining-room to-day, because--' The cause, necessary to her gentility, was lost, as Ida proceeded to let him in at the front door, and he presently deposited himself on the sofa, grumbling complacently at the bore of holidays, especially bank holidays. His crew would have been ready to strike, he declared, if he had taken them out of harbour, or he would have asked the ladies to come on a cruise out of the way of it all. 'Why, thank you very much, Mr. Brady, but, really in my poor brother, Lord Northmoor's state, I don't know that it would be etiquette.' 'Ah, yes. By the bye, how's the governor?' 'Very sad, strength failing. I hardly expect to hear he is alive to-morrow,' and Mrs. Morton's handkerchief was raised. 'Oh ay, sad enough, you know! I say, will it make any difference to you?' 'My poor, dear brother! Well, it ought, you know. Indeed it would if it had not been for that dear little boy. My poor Herbert!' 'It must have been an awful sell for him.' 'Yes,' said Ida, 'and some people think there was something very odd about it all--the child being born out in the Dolomites, with nobody there!' 'Don't, Ida, I can't have you talk so,' protested her mother. 'Supposititious, by all that's lucky! I should strangle him!' and Mr. Brady put back his head and laughed a loud and hearty laugh, by no means elegant, but without much sound of truculent intentions. CHAPTER XXXII A SHOCK It was on the Thursday of Whitsun-week when Lady Adela and Bertha came down from their visit of inquiry, a little more hopeful than on the previous day, though they could not yet say that recovery was setting in. But a great shock awaited them. The parlour-maid met them at the door, pale and tearful. 'Oh, my lady, Mrs. Eden's come, and--'