What did she know about Walter Joyce? Absolutely nothing, but that he was young, handsome, brightly intelligent, presumably poor, and socially insignificant, or he would not be her silly brother's secretary. Her attention had been directed to him at first, because she felt a compassionate curiosity about the person whom circumstances had oppressed so cruelly as to oblige him to purvey ideas, and language in which to express them, for Lord Hetherington. Curiosity and compassion had been replaced, within a few minutes, by admiration, which the difference between the manners and bearing of Walter, and those of the men with whom she was accustomed to associate, rather tended to increase. There was no awkwardness about Walter, but neither was there the slightest pretence. He was at ease in the unaccustomed company he found himself among, but he did not affect to be other than an observant stranger in it. "He has an intellect and a heart," said Lady Caroline half aloud, as she rose from her seat by the fireside, and brought her reverie to a conclusion, "and why should I care for the world's opinion? It could not make me happy, if I conciliated it; but I think _he_ could, if I defied it for his sake." CHAPTER XV. "NEWS FROM THE HUMMING CITY." After the ladies left the dining-room, Walter Joyce, in the general re-arrangement of seats thereon ensuing, found himself placed next to Mr. Gould. It was soon obvious that his propinquity was not accidental on Mr. Gould's part. That keen-looking gentleman at once wheeled round in his chair, helped himself to a few olives and a glass of the driest sherry within his reach, and then fixing his bright steel-blue eyes on his neighbour, said-- "That was news for you, that about young Creswell's accident, Mr. Joyce?" "It was indeed," replied Walter; "and--to a certain extent--sad news." "You knew the boy who was killed, and his father?" "Both. I knew the boy well; he was a pupil in the school where I was an usher, and I knew the father--by sight--as a man in my position would know a man in his." "Ah--of course!" and Mr. Gould glanced more keenly than ever at his interlocutor, to see whether he was speaking earnestly or contemptuously. Earnestly, he thought, after a glance, and Joyce fell a little in the worldly man's opinion. He sucked an olive slowly, made a little pattern on his plate with the stones, and then said, "Do you think this affair will make any difference in Mr. Creswell's future?" "In his future? Will the loss of his son make any difference in his future? Are you serious in asking such a question, Mr. Gould? Will it not leave his life a blank, a vague misery without----"