“You don’t understand papa,” said Elizabeth, with authority. “He always seems so easy-going that people don’t guess that he’s just like a rock underneath. Nobody thinks so much of class distinctions and money distinctions--those are almost the same thing nowadays--as he does. Rees would have no more chance as a son-in-law than--than Amos Goodhare,” she ended contemptuously. Lady Kate laughed and pretended to shudder. “Oh, old Amos,” she cried with real disgust. “Don’t speak of that man. I can’t bear him. I think he has such shifting eyes and such a bad, horrible face. I never could understand why papa allowed such a man into the house at all.” “He is really a well-read man, and he looks just such a man as a librarian ought to look,” said Elizabeth, in a reserved tone, as if she knew more than she intended to tell. Kate looked hard at her sister, and then edged her footstool close up to her side. “Betty,” she whispered, with a very curious expression, “did you ever notice the extraordinary likeness there is between Mr. Goodhare and--papa?” “Nonsense, child,” said Lady Elizabeth, blushing violently, and trying to rise. But Lady Kate, who was a sturdily built girl, with little fat, but muscular hands, held her down. “Of course, he looks much older, because he doesn’t dye his hair and mustache, as papa does, and because he wears a beard. But really, do you know, Betty, I’ve sometimes thought----” But here Lady Elizabeth, who was also a robust young woman, disengaged herself, with no great gentleness, from her sister’s clasp, and with an almost frightened, “Hush, Kitty, hush; you mustn’t let your tongue run on so,” left her to form her own opinion on the subject of this sudden closure of the discussion. Lady Kate mused for some time on this point, until at length it occurred to her to get a peep at Mr. Goodhare by the light of her new suspicions. She knew where he was to be found, for, to do him justice, the librarian loved his books, and appeared to live for nothing else. He had lately been employed in collecting papers and documents and books of reference bearing on the history of Carstow Castle, of which most interesting ruin Lady Marion proposed to compile an exhaustive chronicle. No subject more fascinating could well have been chosen. The old place, after having suffered many vicissitudes of fortune under Plantagenets and Tudors, had been almost destroyed during the Great Rebellion, when it was held for King Charles by a brave little garrison, who did not surrender until all hope of escape had been cut off by a fearless Puritan soldier. Swimming across the river with a knife in his mouth, he cut adrift the boat on which the defenders of the castle counted for their flight. Some years later a tower of the desolated castle was patched up into a prison for one of the “regicides,” who passed there a pleasantly mitigated captivity, and was buried in the churchyard of the quiet little old town.