Nigh to Madeleine's rooms was a big airy chamber with a shower-bath, an iron bedstead, a painted chest of drawers, and a couple of common chairs, for its sole furniture. This was the room devoted to Captain Kilsyth whenever he stayed with his relatives, and had been furnished according to his exact injunctions. It was like Roland himself, grim and stern, and was regarded as a kind of Blue Chamber of Horrors by Lady Muriel's little children, who used to hurry past its door, and accredited it as a perfect stronghold of bogies. This feeling was but a reflection of that with which the little girls Ethel and Maud regarded their elder brother. His visits to their schoolroom, periodically made, were always looked forward to with intense fright both by them and by their governess Miss Blathers--a worthy woman, untouchable in Mangnall, devoted to the backboard, with a fair proficiency in music and French, but with an unconquerable tendency towards sentimentality of the most snivelling kind. Miss Blathers' sentiment was of the G.P.R. James's school; she was always on the look-out for that knight who was to come and deliver her from the bonds of governesshood, who was to fling his arm over her, as Count Gismond flung his round Mr. Browning's anonymous heroine, and lead her off to some land, where Ollendorf was unknown, and Levizac had never been heard of. A thoroughly worthy creature, Miss Blathers, but horribly frightened of Ronald, who would come into the schoolroom, make his bow, pull his moustache, and go off at once into the questions, pulling his moustache a great deal more, and shrugging his shoulders at the answers he received. It was not often, however, that Ronald came to Brook-street, at all events for any length of time. When he was on duty, he was of course with his regiment in barracks; and when he had opportunities of devoting himself to his own peculiar studies and subjects, he generally took advantage of those opportunities with his own particular cronies. He would ride with Madeleine sometimes, in a morning, occasionally in the Row, but oftener for a long stretch round the pretty suburbs; and he would dine with his father now and then; and perhaps twice in the season would put in an appearance in Lady Muriel's opera-box, and once at a reception given by her. But, except perhaps by Madeleine, who always loved to see him, he was not much missed in Brook-street, where, indeed, plenty of people came.