I wished to buy made much more sensation than the
others, and has suddenly lifted him from obscurity into fame."

"He appears to be a relation of Miss Mordaunt's, but so distant a
one that she could not even tell me what grade of cousinship he could
claim."

"Nor can I. He is her guardian, I know. The relationship, if any, must,
as you say, be very distant; for Melville is of humble extraction, while
any one can see that Mrs. Cameron is a thorough gentlewoman, and Lily
Mordaunt is her sister's child. I have heard my mother say that it was
Melville, then a very young man, who bought the cottage, perhaps with
Mrs. Cameron's money; saying it was for a widowed lady, whose husband
had left her with very small means. And when Mrs. Cameron arrived with
Lily, then a mere infant, she was in deep mourning, and a very young
woman herself,--pretty too. If Melville had been a frequent visitor
then, of course there would have been scandal; but he very seldom came,
and when he did, he lodged in a cottage, Cromwell Lodge, on the other
side of the brook; now and then bringing with him a fellow-lodger,--some
other young artist, I suppose, for the sake of angling. So there could
be no cause for scandal, and nothing can be more blameless than poor
Mrs. Cameron's life. My mother, who then resided at Braefieldville, took
a great fancy to both Lily and her aunt, and when by degrees the cottage
grew into a genteel sort of place, the few gentry in the neighbourhood
followed my mother's example and were very kind to Mrs. Cameron, so that
she has now her place in the society about here, and is much liked."

"And Mr. Melville?--does he still very seldom come here?"

"To say truth, he has not been at all since I settled at Braefieldville.
The place was left to my mother for her life, and I was not much there
during her occupation. In fact, I was then a junior partner in our firm,
and conducted the branch business in New York, coming over to England
for my holiday once a year or so. When my mother died, there was much to
arrange before I could settle personally in England, and I did not come
to settle at Braefieldville till I married. I did see Melville on one of
my visits to the place some years ago; but, between ourselves, he is not
the sort of person whose intimate acquaintance one would wish to court.
My mother told me he was an idle, dissipated man, and I have heard from
others that he was very unsteady. Mr. -----, the great painter, told
me