They both started up from occupations of which both were tired, and welcomed their visitors with a show of genuine pleasure; for although they had been very determined in their resistance to anything like patronage on Juanita’s part when she was Miss Dalbrook, they were glad that she should be prompt to recognize the claims of kindred now that she was Lady Carmichael. “How good of you to come!” exclaimed Janet. “I didn’t think you would remember us, at such a time.” “Did you think I must forget old friends because I am happy?” said Juanita. “But I mustn’t take credit for other people’s virtues. It was Godfrey who proposed driving over to see you.” “I wanted to show you what a nice couple we make,” said Sir Godfrey, gaily, drawing his bride closer to him, as they stood side by side, tall and straight, and glowing with youth and gladness, in the middle of the grave old drawing-room. “You young ladies were not so cousinly as your brother Theodore. _You_ didn’t drive to Cheriton to welcome us home.” “If Theo had told us what he was going to do we should have been very glad to be there too,” replied Sophy, “but he rode off in the morning without saying a word to anybody.” “He is in Germany by this time, I suppose?” said Juanita. “He is downstairs in the office. His portmanteau has been packed for a week, I believe,” explained Janet, “but there is always some fresh business to prevent his starting. My father relies upon him more every day.” “Dear, good Theodore, he is quite the cleverest man I know,” said Juanita, without the slightest idea of disparaging her husband, whom she considered perfection. “I think he must be very much like what my father was at his age.” “People who are in a position to know tell us that he is exactly what his _own_ father was at that age,” said Janet, resenting this attempt to trace her brother’s gifts to a more distant source. “I don’t see why one need go further. My father would not have been trusted as he has been for the last thirty years if he were a simpleton; and Galton observes——” The door opened at this moment, and Theodore came in. He greeted his cousin and his cousin’s husband with unaffected friendliness. “It it against my principles to take luncheon,” he said, laughingly, as he gave Juanita his hand, “but this is a red-letter day. My father is waiting for us in the dining-room.”