Herries stood on the hearth, looking down at his cousin with his cool, critical, half-satirical regard. Her little innocent arts, so infallible, as a rule, in the conquest of his sex, her languishing glance, her merry smile, had no more effect upon him than summer breezes on the bastions of a fort. He called her in his thoughts, ’a little baggage,’ teasing as a midge, perhaps, but hardly more important in the general scheme of things. That the ’little baggage’ might have passions, strong to move her, and strong to move the little world around her—strong enough, perhaps, to turn aside the deep and placid current of his own existence—was a thought that never crossed his brain. Nancy, in the meantime, appreciated perfectly his attitude towards her, and it inspired her with a kind of petulance—the petulance of a charming woman at fault with a man, for once. Yet she always tried ’to be pretty with Herries,’ as she phrased it. It was her nature, and her weakness, to be ’pretty’ with everyone. Alison, at this juncture, had left the cousins alone, taking Danny to his bed, for the child drooped with fatigue, in spite of his eagerness to sit up late. Herries watched her departure. ’I don’t quite gather who she is, and where she comes from, your very—your very ample young friend?’ he enquired, lazily. ’My friend is Miss Graham of The Mains,’ said Nancy, with some tartness. ’Oh, I know that much,’ said Herries. ’But how she comes to be your friend, and to be here, gives food for enquiry. I’ve hitherto not seen that misses from the country were much to your taste.’ ’She has a little history, Archie,’ said Nancy, covering her stony relative (quite unavailingly) with one of her softest glances—’a little history that might melt even your hard heart.’ ’Let us hear it, and perhaps I’ll melt,’ said Herries, drily. ’I found the child in a dreary, God-forsaken hole of a country place,’ Nancy began, in narrative style, ’one of a prodigious family—seven girls—think of it! And they were going to marry her, against her every wish and instinct, to a man old enough to be her father. And so I acted Providence and bore her off, in spite of them, and here she is.’ ’Good God, cousin!’ said Herries, with a lift of his eyebrows that Nancy particularly disliked; ’you mean to say you took the girl from her parents—interfered with their projects for her future—and now burden yourself with the responsibility of her maintenance? Heavens!’ ’Her own father helped me—at the end,’ said Nancy, pouting. ’He was a decent man, and thankful to be off the devilish bargain of selling his daughter to an old horror. Yes, I call it devilish—hellish—if you prefer the word!’ ’Oh, Lord!’ said Herries, as though words failed him. ’And who, pray, was the bridegroom you have helped to cheat?’ ’Old Cheape—you know him—Cheape of Kincarley,’ said Nancy.