himself a connoisseur in embroidery, and inspected the pretty work in her hands--his ailing mother and his deaf aunt, as well as the spiteful Patricia, simultaneously perceived something alarming in the courtesy. Desirée was very young and very pretty, and Oswald was capricious, fanciful, and the heir of Melmar. What if the little governess, sixteen years old, should captivate the son, who was only five-and-twenty? The fear sprang from one feminine mind to another, of all save Joanna, who had already given her thoughts to this catastrophe as the most desirable thing in the world. Oswald’s experience and knowledge of the world, on which he prided himself, went for nothing in the estimation of his female relatives. They thought Desirée, at sixteen, more than a match for him, as they would have thought any other girl in the same circumstances. People say women have no _esprit du corps_, but they certainly have the most perfect contempt for any man’s powers of resistance before the imagined wiles and fascinations of “a designing girl.” These ladies almost gave Oswald over, as he stood, graceful and self-satisfied, in the midst of them--a monarch of all he surveyed--extending his lordly courtesies to the poor little governess. Had he but known! but he did not know any thing about it, and said to himself compassionately, “Poor little thing--how pretty she is!--what could bring her here?” as he threw himself back upon the pillow in that room of which Antonio had regulated the temperature, and thought no more about Desirée; whereas poor little Desirée, charmed with the new voice, and the new grace, and the unusual kindness, dreamed of him all night. CHAPTER XLV. “Am I to understand that our title is somehow endangered? I do not quite comprehend your last letter,” said Oswald, addressing his father somewhat haughtily. They were in Melmar’s study, where everybody went to discuss this business, and where the son sat daintily upon a chair which he had selected from the others for his own use, leaning the points of his elbows upon the table, and looking elaborately uncomfortable--so much so, that some faint idea that this study, after all, could not be a very pleasant apartment, entered, for the first time, the mind of Melmar. “Come nearer to the fire, Oswald,” said Mr. Huntley, suddenly. He was really solicitous about the health and comfort of his son. “Thank you; I can scarcely breathe _here_,” said the young man, ungratefully. “Was I right, sir, in supposing _that_ to be your reason for writing me such a letter as your last?” “You were right in supposing that I wanted to see you,” said the father, with some natural displeasure. “You live a fine life in foreign parts, my lad; you’ve little to put you about; but what could you do for yourself if the funds at Melmar were to fail?” “Really the idea is disagreeable,” said Oswald, laughing. “I had rather not take it into consideration, unless it is absolutely necessary.”