“That is a wonderful picture opposite, Lady Cranstoun,” he felt compelled to say at last. “By this light and at this distance I can hardly distinguish whether it is really old, or only painted in the old manner.” His hostess did not at once answer him, and he noted that she grew a shade or two paler, and that a frightened, furtive look came into her eyes. Miss Cranstoun ceased speaking to the doctor, and looked inquiringly toward her. “The picture is modern,” Lady Cranstoun said at last, and paused again. “It is a portrait of my father,” Stella added, with marked, even, as it seemed, defiant distinctness. “An excellent piece of work, is it not?” Dr. Graham remarked, breaking in upon the silence which followed Miss Cranstoun’s statement. “The tone really reminds me of a Murillo--so dignified, and sombre, and mellow. Quite a harmony in gray, as we should call it in our latter-day studio slang. The work attracted considerable attention when it was hung in the Royal Academy five years ago. You see Sir Philip is represented in a suit of armor worn by a member of his own family at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. In his hand he holds a sword with lowered point, and he stands as though waiting for an enemy to attack him. The manipulation of the armor is most dexterously rendered, the effect of a low light upon it from the sky being reproduced admirably, really admirably. Herkomer has never done anything better.” Involuntarily, as the doctor rambled on in his deep mellifluous tones, Lord Carthew’s eyes left Sir Philip’s portrait, and fixed themselves upon the face of his daughter. For one brief moment he caught upon her lovely features a cold, mocking expression almost identical with that which distinguished her father’s; but almost before he had had time to feel shocked and astonished thereby, Stella had turned to the doctor, and was asking him if he knew anything of the pictures which would attract the most attention at the forthcoming Academy exhibition, and listening with apparent interest to his replies. In answer to Claud’s inquiry whether she went often to London to see the pictures, Miss Cranstoun answered that she had only been in London three or four times in her life. “I read all about pictures and music in the ladies’ papers,” she said. “Mamma is so delicate, the journey to London tires her. But next month I am to be presented by my grandmamma, the Duchess of Lanark, and then, I suppose, I shall be taken to see everything.” “You must be looking forward to your _début_, I imagine?” said Lord Carthew. She looked across at him steadily, and then answered quietly: “I suppose I ought to. But mamma will be dull without me.” “Indeed I shall, my dear child,” Lady Cranstoun returned, with a look toward the young girl of so much kindness and affection that in Claud’s eyes it redeemed her plainness.