"Now I am proud to be presented to you," said the aunt to Lady Tilchester, with perfect composure. "We have heard a great deal of you in our country, and my niece, Miss Trumpet, has always had the greatest admiration for your photograph." The niece, meanwhile, talked to me. There is something so fresh and engaging about her that in a few moments one almost forgot her terrible voice. "Why, it does seem strange," she said, "with the veneration we have in America for really old things, to hear the Duke" (she does not quite say Dook, like the aunt. It sounds more like Juke) "call this castle an old 'stone-heap.' I am just longing to see the place his ancestor was beheaded upon in May, 1485. The Duke hardly seems to know about it, but I have been led to expect, from the guide-book, that I should see the blood on the stones." The beautiful young man, Lord Luffton, now engaged her in conversation, and as Lady Tilchester and I left the hall both he and the Duke were escorting Miss Trumpet to the dais--no doubt to turn up the carpet and search for the traditional blood upon the steps. "They are the most wonderful nation," Lady Tilchester said, as she linked her arm in mine. "Here is a girl looking as well bred as any of us--more so than most of us--probably beautifully educated, and accomplished, too, and whose father began as a common navvy or miner out in the West. The mother is dead--she took in washing, Cordelia says--and yet she was the sister of Miss Martina B. Cadwallader! How on earth do they manage to look like this?" "It is wonderful, certainly. It must be the climate," I hazarded. "We cannot do it in England. Think of the terrible creature a girl with such parentage would be here. Picture her ankles and hands! And the self-consciousness, or the swagger, this situation would display!" I thought of Mrs. Dodd and the Gurrage commercial relations generally. "Yes, _indeed_," I said. "They are so adaptable," she continued. "It does not seem to matter into what nation they marry, they seem to assimilate and fit into their places. When this little thing is a duchess, you will see she will fulfil the position to a tee. Berty will be very lucky if he secures her." "I think Lord Luffton will be a much greater stumbling-block than I shall," I laughed. "Perhaps he likes the idea of fifty thousand a year, too." "Oh, Cordelia will see about that. Babykins, who knows everything, tells me she has fallen wildly in love with Luffy. He has only arrived back from the war about a week. And she will not let any other woman interfere with her. I had heard another story about her in Scotland. They told me she was having an affair with some"--she stopped suddenly, no doubt remembering to whom she was talking--"foreigner." She ended the sentence with perfect tact. The little sitting-room is in a turret and is octagon-shaped, a dainty, charming, old-world room that grandmamma might have lived in. We drew two chairs up to the fire and sat down cosily.