“Had you any words together, boy?” said Sir Marmaduke, with an evident anxiety in his look and voice. “A mere interchange of greeting,” replied Fred, laughing, “in which each party showed his teeth, but did not bite withal. I unhappily mistook him for a game-keeper--and worse still, told him so, and he felt proportionably angry at the imputation--preferring, probably, to be thought a poacher. He is a rude coarse fellow,” said he with a changed voice, “with pride to be a gentleman--but not breeding nor manner to enact the character.” “The visit was, after all, not an agreeable one,” said Miss Travers, “and I am only surprised how you came to prolong it. You spent the whole day there.” Although there was not the slightest degree of suspicion insinuated by this remark, Fred stole a quick glance at his sister, to see if she really intended more than the mere words implied. Then, satisfied that she had not, he said in a careless way-- “Oh, the weather broke; it came on a heavy snow-storm; and as the younger brother pressed me to remain, and I had no fancy to face the hurricane, I sat down to a game of chess.” “Chess! Indeed, Fred, that sounds very humanizing. And how did he play?” “It was not with him I played,” answered he, hesitatingly. “What---with the elder?” “No, nor him either; my antagonist was a cousin--I think they called her cousin.” “Called _her_,” said Sybella, slyly. “So then, Master Fred, there was a lady in the case. Well, we certainly have been a long while coming to her.” “Yes, she has lately arrived--a day or two ago--from some convent in the Low Countries, where she has lived since she was a child.” “A strange home for her,” interposed Sir Marmaduke. “If I do not misconceive them greatly, they must be very unsuitable associates for a young lady educated in a French convent.” “So you would say, if you saw her,” said Fred, seizing with avidity at the opening, then offered, to coincide with an opinion he was half afraid to broach. “She is perfectly foreign in look, dress, and demeanour--with all the mannerism of Paris life, graceful and pleasing in her address; and they, at least one of them, a downright boor--the other, giving him credit for good looks and good nature, yet immeasurably _her_ inferior in every respect.” “Is she pretty, Frederic?” said Sybella, not lifting her eyes from her work as she spoke. “I should say pretty,” replied he, with hesitation, as if qualifying his praise by a word which did not imply too much. “I prefer a quieter style of beauty, for my own part; less dazzle, less sparkling effect; something to see every day, and to like the better the more one sees it”--and he placed his arm around his sister's waist, and gazed at her as if to give the interpretation to his speech. “You have made me quite curious to see her, Fred,” said Sybella. “The very fact of finding one like her in such a place has its interest.”