that I'll come in some time
to-day."

"Charles, did you hear what Simon said--that Mr. Elster has come down?"
asked Mrs. Ashton.

"Yes, I heard it," replied the doctor; and there was a hard dry tone in
his voice, as if the news were not altogether palatable to him. "It must
have been Percival Elster your wife saw, Jabez; not Lord Hartledon."

Jabez had been arriving at the same conclusion. "They used to be much
alike in height and figure," he observed; "it was easy to mistake the one
for the other. Then that's all this morning, sir?"

"There is nothing more, Jabez."

In a room whose large French window opened to flowerbeds on the side of
the house, bending over a table on which sundry maps were spread, her
face very close to them, sat at this moment a young lady. It was the same
face you have just seen in the portrait--that of Dr. and Mrs. Ashton's
only daughter. The wondrously sunny expression of countenance, blended
with strange sweetness, was even more conspicuous than in the portrait.
But what perhaps struck a beholder most, when looking at Miss Ashton for
the first time, was a nameless grace and refinement that distinguished
her whole appearance. She was of middle height, not more; slender; her
head well set upon her shoulders. This was her own room; the schoolroom
of her girlhood, the sitting-room she had been allowed to call her own
since then. Books, work, music, a drawing-easel, and various other items,
presenting a rather untidy collection, met the eye. This morning it was
particularly untidy. The charts covered the table; one of them lay on the
carpet; and a pot of mignonette had been overturned inside the open
window scattering some of the mould. She was very busy; the open sleeves
of her lilac-muslin dress were thrown back, and her delicate hands were
putting the finishing touches in pencil to a plan she had been copying,
from one of the maps. A few minutes more, and the pencil was thrown down
in relief.

"I won't colour it this morning; it must be quite an hour and a half
since I began; but the worst is done, and that's worth a king's ransom."
In the escape from work, the innocent gaiety of her heart, she broke into
a song, and began waltzing round the room. Barely had she passed the open
window, her back turned to it, when a gentleman came up, looked in,
stepped softly over the threshold, and imprisoned her by the waist.

"Be quiet, Arthur. Pick up that mignonette-pot you threw down, sir."

"My