Yes, it was full time Mrs Atheling should hasten down stairs, and, in the most accidental manner in the world, step out into the garden. Marian, unfortunate child! with her young roses startled on her sweet young cheeks by this faint presaging breath of a new existence, had never been so pretty all her life. CHAPTER XXIII. THE YOUNG PEOPLE. What Louis did or said, or how he made interest for himself in the tender heart of Mamma, no one very well knows; yet a certain fact it was, that from henceforward Mrs Atheling, like Miss Anastasia, became somewhat contemptuous of Rachel in the interest of Louis, and pursued eager and long investigations in her own mind--investigations most fruitless, yet most persevering--touching the old lord and the unknown conclusion of his life. All that was commonly known of the last years of the last Lord Winterbourne was, that he had died abroad. Under the pressure of family calamity he had gone to Italy, and there, people said, had wandered about for several years, leading a desultory and unsettled life, entirely out of the knowledge of any of his friends; and when the present bearer of the title came home, bearing the intelligence of his elder brother’s death, the most entire oblivion closed down upon the foreign grave of the old lord. Back into this darkness Mrs Atheling, who knew no more than common report, made vain efforts to strain her kindly eyes, but always returned with a sigh of despair. “No!” said Mamma, “he might be proud, but he was virtuous and honourable. I never heard a word said against the old lord. Louis is like him, but it must only be a chance resemblance. No! Mr Reginald was always a wild bad man. Poor things! they _must_ be his children; for my lord, I am sure, never betrayed or deceived any creature all his life.” But still she mused and dreamed concerning Louis; he seemed to exercise a positive fascination over all these elder people; and Mrs Atheling, more than she had ever desired a friendly gossip with Miss Willsie, longed to meet once more with the Honourable Anastasia, to talk over her conjectures and guesses respecting “the boy.”