“Oh, my dear Eve, don’t be affected,” cried this lively lady, “as if a great person like Mr. Rowland could travel and bring home his bride without all the papers getting hold of it! Why, we heard of your wedding-dress and the diamonds he gave you, almost as soon as you did. They were in one of the ladies’ papers of course. And so, Evelyn, after waiting so long, you have gone and made a great match after all.” “Have I made a great match? indeed I did not know it. I have married a very good man which is of more consequence,” said Evelyn, with almost an air of offence. But that, of course, was absurd, for Lady Leighton had not the most distant idea of offending. “Oh, that goes without saying,” she said lightly; “every new man is more perfect than any other that went before him. But you need not undervalue your good things all the same. I suppose there were advantages in respect to the diamonds? He would be able to pick them up in a way that never happens to us poor people at home.” “I dare say he will be glad to tell you if you want to know; but, Madeline, that is not what interests me most. There are so many things I should like to hear of.” “Yes; to be sure,” said Lady Leighton, growing grave; “but, my dear, if I were you I wouldn’t inquire--not now, when everything is so changed.” “What is so changed?” said Evelyn, more and more surprised. Her friend made a series of signals with her eyes, indicating some mystery, and standing, as Evelyn now perceived, in such a position as to screen from observation an inner room from which she had come. The pantomime ended by a tragic whisper: “He is there--don’t see him. It would be too great a shock. And why should you, when you are so well off?” “Who is there? And why should I not see, whoever it is? I can’t tell what you mean,” Mrs. Rowland said. “Oh, if that is how you feel!” said her friend; “but I would not in your place.” At this moment Evelyn heard a sound as of shuffling feet, and looking beyond her friend’s figure, saw an old man, as she supposed, with an ashy countenance and bowed shoulders, coming towards them. At the first glance he seemed very old, very feeble; some one whom she had never seen before--and it took him some time to make his way along the room. Even when he came near she did not recognize him at first. He put out feebly a lifeless hand, and said, in a thick mumbling tone: “Is this Evelyn Ferrars? but she has grown younger instead of older. Not like me.” Evelyn rose in instinctive respect to the old man whom she did not know. She thought it must be some old relative of Madeline, some one who had known her as a child. She answered some indifferent words of greeting, and dropped hastily as soon as she had touched it, the cold and flabby hand. It could be no one whom she had known, though he knew her.