d to his step-brother's
presence, had been most assiduous in tending him--seemed to understand
his least sign, and to lay aside all his boisterous roughness in his
eager desire to do him service. The lads had loved each other from the
moment they had met as children, but never so apparently as now,
when all the rude horse-play of healthy youths was over--and one was
dependent, the other considerate. And if Berenger had made on one else
believe in Eustacie, he had taught Philip to view her as the 'Queen's
men' viewed Mary of Scotland. Philip had told Lucy the rough but
wholesome truth, that 'Mother talks mere folly. Eustacie is no more to
be spoken of with you than a pheasant with old brown Partlet; and Berry
waits but to be well to bring her off from all her foes. And I'll go
with him.'

It was on Philip's arm that Berenger first crept round the
bowling-green, and with Philip at his rein that he first endured to
ride along the avenue on Lord Walwyn's smooth-paced palfrey; and it
was Philip who interrupted Lucy's household cares by rushing in and
shouting, 'Sister, here! I have wiled him to ride over the down, and
he is sitting under the walnut-tree quite spent, and the three little
wenches are standing in a row, weeping like so many little mermaids.
Come, I say!'

Lucy at once followed him through the house, through the deep porch to
the court, which was shaded by a noble walnut-tree, where Sir Marmaduke
loved to sit among his dogs. There not sat Berenger, resting against the
trunk, overcome by the heat and exertion of his ride. His cloak and
hat lay on the ground; the dogs fawned round him, eager for the wonted
caress, and his three little sisters stood a little aloof, clinging to
one another and crying piteously.

It was their first sight of him; and it seemed to them as if he were
behind a frightful mask. Even Lucy was not without a sensation of the
kind, of this effect in the change from the girlish, rosy complexion to
extreme paleness, on which was visible, in ghastly red and purple, the
great scar left by Narcisse, from the temple on the one side to the ear
on the other.

The far more serious would on the cheek was covered with a black patch,
and the hair had almost entirely disappeared from the head, only a few
light brown locks still hanging round the neck and temples, so that
the bald brow gave a strange look of age; and the disfigurement was
terrible, enhanced as it was by the wasting effect of nearly a y