The touch of spring was upon the Surrey meads and Surrey hills, and a tender gray-green veil adorned the boughs laid bare by winter winds. Before an ideal country-house, low and rambling, with plentiful green lattice-work for the creepers beginning now to bud, and broad terraces sheltered by verandas overlooking a trim tennis-lawn and a flower-garden gay with hyacinths and daffodils, in joyous flower, a comely group was gathered. Two young men, who had been for three days guests, were taking leave of Mr. and Mrs. Braithwaite, the three pretty Misses Braithwaite, their still prettier cousin, and the two young brothers of the family. A more attractive and typically English group could hardly be imagined. Father and mother, plump, handsome, and well-fed, surveying, with excusable pride, their three fair-haired girls, all of whom possessed wide shoulders, slender waists, fresh complexions, and clear gray eyes. The Misses Braithwaite and their cousin could all ride, drive, play lawn tennis and the newest dance music, and they one and all looked forward to the time when they should marry “well,” and spend every season in London. Between these four young ladies there existed a marked and charming likeness; but the two young men, from one of whom at least they were so regretfully parting, were extremely dissimilar in appearance, voice, and manner. The elder was a man of seven-and-twenty, fully six feet four inches in height, and of massive build and proud, erect carriage, which made him appear even taller than he really was. His hair, of a golden-brown color, curled closely over his handsome head, which was set upon his broad shoulders like that of a young Hercules. His features were well cut, his brown eyes as clear and beautiful in color as those of a collie-dog, and a drooping yellow mustache shaded the outlines of a mouth which at times, when closely shut, gave a look of hardness to his expression. In a word, he was a superb specimen of young English manhood, and as if nature had never wearied in her gifts, she united to a superb frame and handsome face a particularly rich and mellow voice. And yet there was but little doubt that if the eyes of the four young ladies occasionally rested upon him with admiration, their serious attentions were all reserved for his companion, who could not, by the grossest flattery, have been termed even ordinarily good-looking.