Before Cecil could repeat her inquiry, the barrister made his appearance, accompanied by another legal celebrity, whose cheering presence often illumined the dulness of Brunswick Square. Mr. O'Boyneville welcomed the dowager with his accustomed cordiality, and made an especial descent to the cellar to procure a particular brand of sparkling Moselle for that lady's consumption. The two legal celebrities made some faint pretence of general conversation while the soup was on the table; but with the appearance of the fish plunged at once into a discussion of the numerous points, which bristled over the celebrated case of Blunderbuss against Saddlebags, lately decided in the Court of Exchequer; and then, by an easy transition, they floated into a debate upon the arguments of the respondent's counsel in that interesting appeal before the Lords-Justices. On ordinary occasions the dowager--who was always well posted in her _Times_--was apt to join in these legal disquisitions, and would give her opinion with sprightly intelligence and feminine decisiveness. But to-day Mrs. MacClaverhouse was evidently preoccupied. She allowed the gentlemen to express their sentiments without interruption or contradiction from her, and forgot to compliment Mr. O'Boyneville on the delicate aroma of his Moselle, or to whisper any little reproving speech to Cecil regarding the wasteful character of the banquet. The dusk was deepening when the ladies went up stairs to the drawing-room; but when the barrister's inestimable man-of-all-work would have lighted the candles, Mrs. MacClaverhouse entreated that the operation might be postponed. "I know you like mooning in the dark, Cecil," exclaimed the dowager, with some of her native sharpness, "and for once in a way I feel inclined for this half-light.--Come in half an hour, Pupkin; that will be plenty of time for the candles.--There's light enough for you to play to me, I suppose, Cecil?" "Quite enough, dear aunt. Would you like me to play?" "Yes, most decidedly. It's a treat to hear a decent piano after that old rattle-trap of mine. And your Broadwood is a magnificent instrument--something like a present from a husband. Ah, what a husband yours is, Cecil!" exclaimed the dowager, with sudden enthusiasm; "and I dare say you think no more of him than if he was one of those men with red-hot pokers and hob-nailed boots that one reads of in the police-reports." "But, auntie, I am very grateful----" "Grateful!" cried Mrs. MacClaverhouse, impatiently; "gratitude has nothing to do with it. I tell you, child, you are utterly incapable of appreciating Laurence O'Boyneville." Cecil had seated herself at the piano by this time. Her fingers wandered absently over the keys, and her head was bent in a pensive attitude. Mrs. MacClaverhouse watched her niece sharply as she bent over the instrument. The slender figure draped in white looked very fragile and phantom-like in the dusk.