The latter perceiving that Phyllida was recovered of her alarm, and anxious to prove to the elderly gentleman that his appetite was in the wrong by producing a flock of savoury dishes as speedily as possible, hereupon curtseyed, and was soon audible in shrill pursuit of little Polly Patch. The Travellers' Room of the _Basket of Roses_ was plunged into rosy quiet. The Dutch clock swung a languid pendulum to and fro with gentle tick; the fire whispered and crackled faintly; the lattices occasionally shook before a more unruly blast; a mouse stood up in a dark corner and squeaked; the huge oak dresser occasionally tapped; two unknown birds, screened till morning by chintz foliage, sometimes stirred on their perches; the elderly gentleman sometimes rapped his mother-o'-pearl snuff-box; Phyllida sometimes smoothed her forget-me-not flowered skirts; and away in the taproom was a tinkle and murmur of taproom sounds muffled by several intervening doors. Yet, however fair the surroundings, it is impossible for two people, unacquainted, to maintain a graceful silence for long. The elderly gentleman began to tap his snuff-box more frequently, while Phyllida would smooth her skirts more persistently and from time to time cast a sidelong glance in the direction of the elderly gentleman. The latter felt the undercurrent of strong emotion so keenly that he was worried by this steady inaction into a curiosity quite alien to his character, and plunged into a conversation consisting principally of a large number of direct questions on his side and a small number of indirect replies on the part of Phyllida. At last, after a tiresome quarter of an hour in which the only solid piece of information given and offered was the fact that he was going to, she departing from the salubrious town of Curtain Wells, the elderly gentleman produced from the upper left-hand pocket of his waistcoat an oval case of worn Morocco leather. Phyllida observed that he rapped this in just the same decided way as he rapped his snuff-box and felt a certain incongruity in his manner, as he took from it the miniature of a young girl and offered the portrait for her inspection, asking whether she detected a likeness. The girl, depicted with the meticulous art of the worker on a small scale, recalled at once the features of Mr. Charles Lovely. Phyllida hesitated for a moment before assigning the likeness to such a man. "You observe, Madam, the resemblance to yourself?" said the elderly gentleman. "To myself?" replied Miss Courteen taken aback. "For what other reason should I show it to you?" "To say truth, sir, it reminds me more of a gentleman----" "Eh! what's that," he interrupted. "Not young Charles Lovely?" "Indeed, sir--'twas he occurred to my mind." "You know him?" "I have stepped a minuet with him," replied Phyllida, now more than ever on her guard against the steel-grey eyes of the elderly gentleman. "This was my sister, his mother."