He was a tall, powerfully-made young man, giving the impression of strength rather than elegance. His face was rather square, ruddy-coloured (as his father had said), hair and eyes brown—the latter rather deep-set beneath his thick eyebrows; and he had a trick of wrinkling up his eyelids when he wanted particularly to observe anything, which made his eyes look even smaller still at such times. He had a large mouth, with excessively mobile lips; and another trick of his was, that when he was amused at anything, he resisted the impulse to laugh, by a droll manner of twitching and puckering up his mouth, till at length the sense of humour had its way, and his features relaxed, and he broke into a broad, sunny smile; his beautiful teeth—his only beautiful feature—breaking out with a white gleam upon the red-brown countenance. These two tricks of his—of crumpling up the eyelids, so as to concentrate the power of sight, which made him look stern and thoughtful; and the odd twitching of the lips that was preliminary to a smile, which made him look intensely merry—gave the varying expressions of his face a greater range “from grave to gay, from lively to severe,” than is common with most men. To Molly, who was not finely discriminative in her glances at the stranger this first night, he simply appeared “heavy-looking, clumsy,” and “a person she was sure she should never get on with.” He certainly did not seem to care much what impression he made upon his mother’s visitor. He was at that age when young men admire a formed beauty more than a face with any amount of future capability of loveliness, and when they are morbidly conscious of the difficulty of finding subjects of conversation in talking to girls in a state of feminine hobbledehoyhood. Besides, his thoughts were full of other subjects, which he did not intend to allow to ooze out in words, yet he wanted to prevent any of that heavy silence which he feared might be impending—with an angry and displeased father, and a timorous and distressed mother. He only looked upon Molly as a badly-dressed and rather awkward girl, with black hair and an intelligent face, who-might help him in the task he had set himself of keeping up a bright general conversation during the rest of the evening; might help him—if she would, but she would not. She thought him unfeeling in his talkativeness; his constant flow of words upon indifferent subjects was a wonder and a repulsion to her. How could he go on so cheerfully, while his mother sat there, scarcely eating anything and doing her best, with ill success, to swallow down the tears that would keep rising to her eyes; when his father’s heavy brow was deeply clouded, and he evidently cared nothing—at first at least—for all the chatter his son poured forth? Had Mr. Roger Hamley no sympathy in him? She would show that she had some, at any rate. So she quite declined the part, which he had hoped she would have taken, of respondent, and possible questioner; and his work became more and more like that of a man walking in a quagmire. Once the Squire roused himself to speak to the butler; he felt the need of outward stimulus—of a better vintage than usual.

“Bring up a bottle of the Burgundy with the yellow seal.”

He spoke low; he had no spirit to speak in his usual voice. The butler answered in the same tone. Molly sitting near them, and silent herself, heard what they said.

“If you please, sir, there are not above six bottles of that seal left; and it is Mr. Osborne’s favourite wine.”

The Squire turned round with a growl in his voice.

“Bring up a bottle of the Burgundy with the yellow seal, as I said.”

The butler went away wondering. “Mr. Osborne’s” likes and dislikes had been the law of the house in general until now. If he had liked any particular food or drink, any seat or place, any special degree of warmth or coolness, his wishes were to be attended to; for he was the heir, and he was delicate, and he was the clever one of the family. All the out-of-doors men would have said the same. Mr. Osborne wished a tree cut down, or kept standing, or had such-and-such a fancy about the game, or desired something unusual about the horses—and they had all to attend to it as if it were law. But to-day the Burgundy with the yellow seal was to be brought; and it was brought. Molly testified with quiet vehemence of action; she never took wine, so she need not have been afraid of the man’s pouring it into her glass; but, as an open mark of fealty to the absent Osborne, however little it might be understood, she placed the