“I know few things more serious than the history of the family honours,” said the Squire, “especially as you have a boy to inherit the old blazon; but we’ll go into all that this evening, as your stay is to be short. Better come and see Mary before dinner. She will want to know all about your home-concerns, and your wife. The house is unchanged, you will perceive,” the Squire continued, talking cheerfully as he led the way; and the sound of his voice, somewhat high-pitched and shrill with age, travelled far through the old passages. “I hope no sacrilegious hands will ever change the house. My heirs may add to it if they please, but it is a monument of antiquity, which ought never to be touched--except to mend it delicately as Mary mends her old lace. This way, Randolph; I believe you have forgotten the way.” They were standing in an angle of the fine oak staircase, where the Squire waited till his son came up to him. At this moment a rush of small footsteps, and a whispering voice--“Run, Nello, Nello! he is coming,” was audible above. Randolph looked up quickly, with a look of intelligence, into the old man’s face. But the Squire did not move a muscle. His countenance was blank as that of a deaf man. If he had heard, he allowed no sign of hearing to be visible. “Come along,” he said, “it seems to me that my wind is better than yours even at my time of life,” with a half-sarcastic smile. Was he hard of hearing? a hypothesis rather agreeable to think of; or what was the meaning of it? Were these obnoxious children the pets of the house? but why should they run because he was coming. The hostile visitor was perplexed, and could not make it out. He followed into the drawing-room without a word, while the small footsteps were still audible. Mary was seated at a low table on which there was work, but she was not working. She rose to receive them with a certain formality; for except after dinner, when the Squire would sometimes come for a cup of tea, or when there were visitors in the house, she was generally alone in the low quaint drawing-room, which transported even the unimaginative Randolph back to childhood. The panelled walls, the spindle-legged furniture, the inlaid cabinets and tables, were all exactly as he remembered them. This touched him a little, though he had all the robustness against impression which fortifies a slow intelligence. “It seems like yesterday that I was here,” he said. This, in her turn, touched Mary, whose excitement made her subject to the lightest flutter of emotion. She smiled at him with greater kindness than she had yet felt. “Yes,” she said. “I feel so sometimes, too, when I look round; but it tells less upon us who are here always. And so much has happened since then.”