Young as he was, Stanley Lake was an old man of the world, not to be disconcerted, and never saw more than exactly suited him. Waiting in the drawing-room, I had some entertaining talk with Miss Lake. Her conversation was lively, and rather bold, not at all in the coarse sense, but she struck me as having formed a system of ethics and views of life, both good-humoured and sarcastic, and had carried into her rustic sequestration the melancholy and precocious lore of her early London experience. When Lord Chelford joined us, I perceived that Wylder was in the room, and saw a very cordial greeting between him and Lake. The captain appeared quite easy and cheerful; but Mark, I thought, notwithstanding his laughter and general jollity, was uncomfortable; and I saw him once or twice, when Stanley's eye was not upon him, glance sharply on the young man with an uneasy and not very friendly curiosity. At dinner Lake was easy and amusing. That meal passed off rather pleasantly; and when we joined the ladies in the drawing-room, the good vicar's enthusiastic little wife came to meet us, in one of her honest little raptures. 'Now, here's a thing worth your looking at! Did you ever see anything so bee-utiful in your life? It is such a darling little thing; and--look now--is not it magnificent?' She arrested the file of gentlemen just by a large lamp, before whose effulgence she presented the subject of her eulogy--one of those costly trifles which announce the approach of Hymen, as flowers spring up before the rosy steps of May. Well, it was pretty--French, I dare say--a little set of tablets--a toy--the cover of enamel, studded in small jewels, with a slender border of symbolic flowers, and with a heart in the centre, a mosaic of little carbuncles, rubies, and other red and crimson stones, placed with a view to light and shade. 'Exquisite, indeed!' said Lord Chelford. 'Is this yours, Mrs. Wylder?' 'Mine, indeed!' laughed poor little Mrs. Dorothy. 'Well, dear me, no, indeed;'--and in an earnest whisper close in his ear--'a present to Miss Brandon, and the donor is not a hundred miles away from your elbow, my lord!' and she winked slyly, and laughed, with a little nod at Wylder. 'Oh! I see--to be sure--really, Wylder, it does your taste infinite credit.' 'I'm glad you like it,' says Wylder, chuckling benignantly on it, over his shoulder. 'I believe I _have_ a little taste that way; those are all real, you know, those jewels.' 'Oh, yes! of course. Have you seen it, Captain Lake?' And he placed it in that gentleman's fingers, who now took his turn at the lamp, and contemplated the little parallelogram with a gleam of sly amusement. 'What are you laughing at?' asked Wylder, a little snappishly. 'I was thinking it's very like the ace of hearts,' answered the captain softly, smiling on. 'Fie, Lake, there's no poetry in you,' said Lord Chelford, laughing.