But Agnes and Marian were much too shy and timid to answer this as they might have answered Harry Oswald under the same circumstances. Agnes half interrupted him, being somewhat in haste to change the conversation. “You are an artist yourself?” said Agnes. “No,” said Sir Langham; “not at all,--no more than everybody else is. I have no doubt you know a hundred people better at it than I.” “I do not think, counting every one,” said Marian, “that we know a hundred, or the half of a hundred, people altogether; and none of them make sketches. Mrs Edgerley said yours were quite remarkable.” “A great many things are quite remarkable with Mrs Edgerley,” said Sir Langham through his mustache. “But what an amazing circle yours must be! One must do something with one’s spare time. That old fellow is the hardest rascal to kill of any I know--don’t you find him so?” “No--not when we are at home,” said Marian. “Ah! in the country, I suppose; and you are Lady Bountifuls, and attend to all the village,” said Sir Langham. He had quite made up his mind that these young girls, who were not fashionable nor remarkable in any way, save for the wonderful beauty of the youngest, were daughters of some squire in Banburyshire, whom it was Lord Winterbourne’s interest to do a service to. “No, indeed, we have not any village--we are not Lady Bountifuls; but we do a great many things at home,” said Marian. Something restrained them both, however, from their heroic purpose of declaring at once their “rank in life;” they shrank, with natural delicacy, from saying anything about themselves to this interrogator, and were by no means clear that it would be right to tell Sir Langham Portland that they lived in Bellevue. “May we go through the conservatory, I wonder?” said Agnes;--the elder sister, remembering the parting charge of her mother, began to be somewhat uneasy about their handsome companion--he might possibly fall in love with Marian--that was not so very dreadful a hypothesis,--for Agnes was human, and did not object to see the natural enemies of womankind taken captive, subjugated, or even entirely slain. But Marian might fall in love with _him_! That was an appalling thought; two distinct lines of anxiety began to appear in Agnes’s forehead; and the imagination of the young genius instantly called before her the most touching and pathetic picture, of a secret love and a broken heart. “Marian, we may go into the conservatory,” repeated Agnes; and she took her sister’s hand and led her to where the Scotch gardener was opening the windows of that fairy palace. Sir Langham still gave them his attendance, following Marian as she passed through the ranks of flowers, and echoing her delight. Sir Langham was rather relieved to find them at last in enthusiasm about something. This familiar and well-known feature of young ladyhood set him much more at his ease.