She had seated herself at the table by this time, and was pouring out coffee with a leisurely air, smiling at her husband all the time, thinking him the greatest and wisest of men, even when he restrained her social instincts. She was never tired of looking at that massive face, with its clearly defined features, sharply cut jaw, and large grey eyes—dark and deep as the eyes of the earnest thinker rather than the shrewd observer. The strong projection of the lower brow indicated keen perceptions, and the power of rapid judgment; but above the perceptive organs the upper brow towered majestically, giving the promise of a mind predominant in the regions of thought and imagination—such a brow as we look upon with reverence in the portraits of Walter Scott. Intellectually the brow was equal to Scott’s; morally there was something wanting. Neither benevolence nor veneration was on a par with the reasoning faculties. Tory principles with Lord Cheriton were not so much the result of an upward-looking nature as they were with Scott. This, at least, is the opinion at which a phrenologist might have arrived after a careful contemplation of that powerful brow. Lord Cheriton sipped his coffee, and leaned back in his arm-chair, with his face to the morning sea. He sat in a lazy attitude, still thoughtful, with those pleasant thoughts which are the repose of the working man’s brain. The tide was going out; the rocky islets stood high out of the water; the sands were widening, till it seemed almost as if the sea were vanishing altogether from this beautiful bay. “I suppose they will finish their honeymoon in a week or two, and move on to the Priory,” said Lord Cheriton, by-and-by, revealing the subject of his reverie. “Yes, Juanita says we may go home as early as the second week in August if we like. She is to be at the Priory in time to settle down before the shooting begins. They will have visitors in September—his sisters, don’t you know—the Morningsides and the Grenvilles, and children and nurses—a house full. Lady Jane ought to be there to help her to entertain.” “I don’t think Nita will want any help. She will be mistress of the situation, depend upon it, and would be if there were forty married sisters with their husbands and belongings. She seemed to be mistress of us all at Cheriton?” “She is so clever,” sighed the mother, remembering that Cheriton House would no longer be under that girlish sovereignty. The grave looking French-Swiss valet appeared with a telegram on a salver. “Who can have sent me a _petit bleu_?” exclaimed Lord Cheriton, who was accustomed to receive a good many of those little blue envelopes when he was in Paris, but expected no such communications at St Malo. Before leaving for his holiday he had impressed upon land steward and house steward that he was not to be bothered about anything. “If there is anything wanted you will communicate with Messrs. Dalbrook,” he said. “They have full powers.”