on sat down and touched the
keyboard. Then she looked around for silence, and it fell completely.
All the eye-witnesses present are agreed that it was in the moment of
this pause that the drawing-room door opened, and they heard the butler
announce the name of Mr. Walkingshaw.

The company turned with one accord and beheld a tall youth, attired in
tweeds, march confidently into the room. In fact, he seemed so much at
home, that, though naturally surprised (especially at his unorthodox
costume), they never dreamt of any but the most obvious and simple
explanation. They scrutinized him as he advanced, merely wondering what
cousin--or could it be brother?--he was.

"Surely that's not Frank?" murmured Lord Kilconquar.

It certainly was not Frank; and yet it was some one who looked
strangely familiar to one or two of the older people present. He made
straight for Andrew, his hand outstretched.

"Don't you know me?" he asked; and the voice recalled strange memories
too.

Andrew was not altogether unprepared for some such apparition appearing
some day, though scarcely on such a horribly ill-timed occasion.
Somehow, he had always imagined the dread possibility as happening in
his office. But he remembered exactly how he had decided to confront it.
He pulled his lip hard down, his eyes contracted dangerously, and then
he merely shook his head.

"What!" cried the young man, with a touching note of rebuffed affection.
"Don't you recognize your own son?"

Andrew's brain reeled. His mouth fell open, and his stare lost all
traces of formidableness.

"Father!" said the stranger in a moving voice.

Incoherently Andrew burst out.

"You--you--you're not my son!"

His disclaimer seemed so evidently sincere that the sense of the company
was already in sympathy with the victim of this outrageous intrusion,
when--alas for him!--his aunt chose that fatal moment, of all others,
to rush out of her chronic background.

"Andrew!" she cried, her cheeks suddenly very pink, her eyes strangely
excited, her voice trembling with the fervor of her appeal. "He must
be--oh, he must be! Look--look at the likeness to your father! Oh,
Andrew, what if it is irregular; surely you wouldn't deny the living
image of poor Heriot!"

"By Gad! So he is," exclaimed Lord Kilconquar.

A general murmur instinctively confirmed this verdict. They wished to be
charitable--but what a family resemblance!

"I--I--I tell you it's a put-up job!" stammered the