rresponding room in Castle Raa.

With a proud lift of his white head my father pointed out the beauties
of his new possession, while my intended husband, with his monocle to
his eye, looked on with a certain condescension, and answered with a
languid humour that narrowly bordered on contempt.

"Oak, sir, solid oak," said my father, rapping with his knuckles on the
tall, dark, heavy wainscoting.

"As old as our hearts and as hard as our heads, I suppose," said Lord
Raa.

"Harder than some, sir," said my father.

"Exactly," said Lord Raa in his slow drawl, and then there was general
laughter.

The bell rang for luncheon, and we went into the plain old dining room,
where Aunt Bridget placed her principal guest on her right and told him
all about her late husband, the Colonel, his honours and military
achievements.

I could see that Lord Raa was soon very weary of this, and more than
once, sitting by his side, I caught the cynical and rather supercilious
responses to which, under the gloss of his gracious manners, Aunt
Bridget seemed quite oblivious.

I was so nervous and embarrassed that I spoke very little during
luncheon, and even Aunt Bridget observed this at last.

"Mary, dear, why don't you speak?" she said.

But without waiting for my reply she proceeded to explain to his
lordship that the strangest change had come over me since I was a child,
when I had been the sauciest little chatterbox in the world, whereas now
I was so shy that it was nearly impossible to get a word out of me.

"Hope I shall be able to get one word out of her, at least," said his
lordship, whereupon Aunt Bridget smiled significantly and Betsy Beauty
burst into fits of laughter.

Almost before the meal was over, my father rose from his seat at the
head of the table, and indicating the lawyers who sat near to him, he
said:

"These gentlemen and I have business to fix up--money matters and all
that--so I guess we'll step into the library and leave you young people
to look after yourselves."

Everybody rose to leave the room.

"All back for tea-time," said Aunt Bridget.

"Of course you don't want _me_," said Betsy Beauty with a giggle, and at
the next moment I was alone with his lordship, who drew a long breath
that was almost like a yawn, and said:

"Is there no quiet place we can slip away to?"

There was the glen at the back of the house (the Cape Flora of Martin
Conrad), so I took him into that, not without an increasing