“Come along, Phillips, come along; we are going to have luncheon. The governor is away, and I’m master to-day. Come along, and we’ll talk about the world and what it says. You ought to have been up the hill with us; my lady friends have been wonderfully eloquent about good boys and naughty boys, and all sorts of things. Tommy was a good boy; he said his lessons, and never went into bad company, and he got some nice cake. Billy was a bad boy, and he wouldn’t say his lessons, and he was whipped, and he got no cake. There, don’t be angry, Miss Somerton,” said Richard, rattling on and laughing at Amy, evidently glorying in what he had heard; and yet piqued at her covert replies to his pretended gossip. “Angry! not I, Mr. Tallant. If Tommy is good, Tommy will be rewarded, at any rate, with an approving conscience; and Billy--why, if he is bad, he will assuredly be punished. And so let us go to luncheon.” “Hear, hear! Come along, Phillips;” and as soon as the artist was ready they all went together over the lawn, and disappeared within the handsome portals of Mr. Tallant’s princely residence. CHAPTER XI. ANOTHER UNEXPECTED VISITOR APPEARS AT BARTON HALL. The drawing-room, library, and dining-room at Barton Hall were upon the ground-floor, _en suite_. They had their several and separate entrances from the hall and corridor beyond; and at the same time had communications with each other from within. The library was the centre apartment, with the dining and drawing-room on either hand; so that, two doors being open, you could walk in a direct line from one end of the suite of rooms to the other; and a delightful walk it was, lit up by seven or eight magnificent bay-windows, from each of which there were glorious views of the Berne Hills. The little party which entered the house at the close of our last chapter, having lunched, adjourned into the library, where the window opening from the ground was thrown up, in order that Mr. Richard Tallant might sit just within and smoke one more cigar. Miss Somerton strolled into the next room, and sat down to the piano, letting her fingers wander dreamily over the keys. Where he sat Mr. Tallant had, through the open doorway, a side-view of her beautiful head; and feelings of disappointment, jealousy, admiration, and annoyance, successively took possession of him as he smoked, and looked, and listened. Mr. Phillips was absorbed in the examination of some new illustrated books which Mr. Christopher Tallant had sent from town for Phœbe, who must have the artist’s opinion about them.