"I do not think it, my lord," replied Manners: "I wish you good-morning;" and he turned calmly on his heel, retreading, with slow steps, the path he had followed from the house. In the mean time, the pace of Lord Dewry was much more rapid; but for a moment we must pause ourselves, and seize this opportunity of looking into his bosom, and seeing some of the motives which, like Cyclops in the cave of Vulcan, were busy forging all those hot thunderbolts that he was dealing about so liberally--_some_, we only say some; for were we to look at all, we should have a catalogue too long for recapitulation here. The fact, then, was, that Lord Dewry had been greatly irritated on the previous day, by a conversation of not the most pleasant kind, concerning the very Sir William Ryder of whom he was destined to hear such high praises the moment he set his foot within his sister's doors. Now, for various reasons, unto himself best known, the noble lord hated this Sir William Ryder with a most reverent and solicitous hatred, and would willingly have given a thousand pounds to any one who would have brought him proof positive that he was dead and safely deposited in that earthy chancery, the archives of which, though they contain many a treasured secret, can never meet the searching eye of this inquisitive world. What, then, were his feelings, when he heard that this very man, in regard to whom his darkest passions had been stirred up that very day, and towards whom he had nourished an evergreen animosity for many years--when he heard that, through the instrumentality of Colonel Manners, this man had been made intimate with his only son!