Their grandfather was sitting half turned away from the table, on which were the remains of a meal and several bottles of wine. Before the fire, with his back against the mantelpiece, stood a tall, dark man in a very becoming undress uniform, his hands in his trousers' pockets, a large cigar in his mouth. Sparks shot into his keen black eyes as they leaped eagerly at the boys, devouring them wholesale in one hungry gaze, then travelling rapidly back and forth in assimilation of details. A foreigner without doubt, said the boys to themselves, as they stared back with interest at the dark, handsome face with its sweeping black moustache and pointed beard. Sir Denzil tapped his snuff-box and snuffed aloofly. "Gad, sir, but I think they do me credit!" said the stranger at last, In a voice that sounded somewhat harsh and nasal to ears accustomed to the soft, round tones of the north. "That's as it may be," said Sir Denzil drily. "Credit where credit is due." "_Sang-d'-Dieu!_ you will allow me a finger in the pie, at all events, sir!" "That much, perhaps!"--with a shrug. "That proverbial finger as a rule points more to marring than to making." "And you've no idea which is which?" And he eyed the boys so keenly that they grew uncomfortable. "Not the slightest! Have you?" "I like them both. I'm proud of them both. But it certainly complicates matters having two of them. Suppose you keep one and I take one? How would that do? I'll wager mine goes higher than yours." "Suppose you put it to them!" The boys had been following this curious discussion with certainly more intelligence than might have been displayed by two puppies whose future was in question, but with only a very dim idea of what some of it might mean. They had at times, of late, come to discuss themselves and their immediate concerns--as to which was the elder, and as to what their father and mother had been like, when they had died, and so on. In the earlier days they had never troubled their heads about such matters. But the exigencies of school life had awakened a desire for more definite information towards the settlement of vexed questions. And so their holidays had been punctuated with attempts at the solution of these weighty problems, and the piercing of the cloud of ignorance in which they had been perfectly happy. And the unsatisfactory results of their inquiries had only served to quicken their thirst for knowledge. Old Mrs. Lee gave them nothing for their pains, and her manner was eminently discouraging. "Which was the elder? She'd have thought any fool could tell they were twins! Their mother?--dead, years ago. Their father?--dead too, she hoped, and best thing for him!"