t splashes of difference) gave me an idea of the sort
of thing I was--and how very little more. And feeling rather lonely in
the turn that things had taken, I rang the bell for somebody; and up
came Stixon.

"Lor', miss! Lor', what a burning shame of Prick!--'Prick' we call her,
in our genial moments, hearing as the 'k' is hard in Celtic language;
and all abroad about her husband. My very first saying to you was, not
to be too much okkipied with her. Look at the pinafore on her! Lord be
with me! If his lordship, as caught me, that day of this very same month
fifty years, in the gooseberry bush--"

"To be sure!" I said, knowing that story by heart, together with all its
embellishments; "but things are altered since that day. Nothing can be
more to your credit, I am sure, than to be able to tell such a tale in
the very place where it happened."

"But, Miss--Miss Erma, I ain't begun to tell it."

"Because you remember that I am acquainted with it. A thing so
remarkable is not to be forgotten. Now let me ask you a question of
importance; and I beg you, as an old servant of this family, to
answer it carefully and truly. Do you remember any one, either here or
elsewhere, so like my father, Captain Castlewood, as to be taken for
him at first sight, until a difference of expression and of walk was
noticed?"

Mr. Stixon looked at me with some surprise, and then began to think
profoundly, and in doing so he supported his chin with one hand.

"Let me see--like the Captain?" He reflected slowly: "Did I ever see a
gentleman like poor Master George, as was? A gentleman, of course, it
must have been--and a very tall, handsome, straight gentleman, to be
taken anyhow for young Master George. And he must have been very like
him, too, to be taken for him by resemblance. Well then, miss, to the
best of my judgment, I never did see such a gentleman."

"I don't know whether it was a gentleman or not," I answered, with
some impatience at his tantalizing slowness; "but he carried his chin
stretched forth--like this."

For Stixon's own attitude had reminded me of a little point in Jacob
Rigg's description, which otherwise might have escaped me.

"Lor', now, and he carried his chin like that!" resumed the butler, with
an increase of intelligence by no means superfluous. "Why, let me see,
now, let me see. Something do come across my mind when you puts out your
purty chin, miss; but there, it must have been a score of years agone,
or mo