f quite ready for the march, "Sophia! We all know
what she is. Why, my dear Adrian, she'll never hear the bell till it
has stopped this half hour."

"Dinner," cried Rupert sharply to the butler, whom his pull of the
bell-rope had summoned. And dinner being served, the guests trooped
into that dining-room which was full of such associations to Sir
Adrian. It was a little thing, but, nevertheless, intensely galling to
Rupert to have to play second gentleman, and give up his privileges as
host to his brother. Usually indeed Adrian cared too little to stand
upon his rights, and insisted upon Rupert's continuing to act in his
presence as he did in his absence; but this afternoon Tanty had left
him no choice.

Nevertheless, as Mr. Landale sat down between the sisters, and turned
smiling to address first one and then the other, it would have taken a
very practised eye to discern under the extra urbanity of his
demeanour the intensity of his inward mortification. He talked a great
deal and exerted himself to make the sisters talk likewise, bantering
Molly into scornful and eager retorts, and preventing Madeleine from
relapsing into that state of dreaminess out of which the rapid
succession of her recent sorrow and joy had somewhat shaken her.

The girls were both excited, both ready to laugh and jest. Tanty,
satisfied to see Adrian preside at the head of the table with a grave,
courteous, and self-contained manner that completely fulfilled her
notions of what family dignity required of him, cracked her jokes, ate
her dinner, and quaffed her cup with full enjoyment, laughing
indulgently at her grand-nieces' sallies, and showing as marked a
disfavour to Rupert as she deemed consistent with good manners.

The poor old lady little guessed how the workings in each brother's
mind were all the while, silently but inevitably, tending towards the
destruction of her newly awakened hopes.

* * * * *

There was silence between Sir Adrian and Rupert when at last they were
left alone together. The elder's gaze wandering in space, his absent
hand softly beating the table, his relaxed frame--all showed that his
mind was far away from thought of the younger's presence. The relief
to be delivered from the twin echoes of a haunting voice--once the
dearest on earth to him--was immense. But his whole being was still
quivering under the first acuteness of so disturbing an impression.

His years of solitude, mor