By this time the door was opened, and before him stood Ethelberta's young brother Joey, thickly populated with little buttons, the remainder of him consisting of invisible green. 'Ah, Joseph,' said Christopher, instantly recognizing the boy. 'What, are you here in office? Is your--' Joey lifted his forefinger and spread his mouth in a genial manner, as if to signify particular friendliness mingled with general caution. 'Yes, sir, Mrs. Petherwin is my mistress. I'll see if she is at home, sir,' he replied, raising his shoulders and winking a wink of strategic meanings by way of finish--all which signs showed, if evidence were wanted, how effectually this pleasant young page understood, though quite fresh from Wessex, the duties of his peculiar position. Mr. Julian was shown to the drawing-room, and there he found Ethelberta alone. She gave him a hand so cool and still that Christopher, much as he desired the contact, was literally ashamed to let her see and feel his own, trembling with unmanageable excess of feeling. It was always so, always had been so, always would be so, at these meetings of theirs: she was immeasurably the strongest; and the deep-eyed young man fancied, in the chagrin which the perception of this difference always bred in him, that she triumphed in her superior control. Yet it was only in little things that their sexes were thus reversed: Christopher would receive quite a shock if a little dog barked at his heels, and be totally unmoved when in danger of his life. Certainly the most self-possessed woman in the world, under pressure of the incongruity between their last meeting and the present one, might have shown more embarrassment than Ethelberta showed on greeting him to- day. Christopher was only a man in believing that the shyness which she did evince was chiefly the result of personal interest. She might or might not have been said to blush--perhaps the stealthy change upon her face was too slow an operation to deserve that name: but, though pale when he called, the end of ten minutes saw her colour high and wide. She soon set him at his ease, and seemed to relax a long-sustained tension as she talked to him of her arrangements, hopes, and fears. 'And how do you like London society?' said Ethelberta. 'Pretty well, as far as I have seen it: to the surface of its front door.' 'You will find nothing to be alarmed at if you get inside.' 'O no--of course not--except my own shortcomings,' said the modest musician. 'London society is made up of much more refined people than society anywhere else.' 'That's a very prevalent opinion; and it is nowhere half so prevalent as in London society itself. However, come and see my house--unless you think it a trouble to look over a house?' 'No; I should like it very much.'