make room for this stranger, whose only connection with the
house of which he has so unexpectedly become the head is probably that
preserved in genealogical tables, the daughters of the house, or their
children it may be, reared in luxury, must go forth to a life of
comparative privation. I met, some years ago, in one of my visits to the
Far West, a young Englishman, who--but I will read you the story of his
life, as I wrote it out soon after parting with him."

"Have you a picture of him, Aunt Nancy?" asked Robert Dudley.

"Yes, Robert," I replied with a smile, "but you must have patience, for
I shall neither show the picture nor tell the story till evening."

When we were assembled in the evening, Annie, with much ceremony, led me
to the high-backed arm-chair, which she called the Speaker's Chair, and
placed before me the small travelling desk, in which she knew my
manuscripts were kept. I unlocked it, and soon found the scroll of which
I was in search.

"But the picture, Aunt Nancy--where is the picture?" cried the eager
Robert.

"Here it is," I cried, as I loosened the ribbon with which the
manuscript was bound together, and produced a small engraving; a fancy
subject, however, rather than an actual portrait, and of no general
interest. The print was eagerly caught by Robert, and handed around the
circle, with exclamations of, "How handsome!" "What an exquisite
picture!" Mr. Arlington looked at it a moment, then, with a smiling
glance at me, handed it, without a word of comment, to Col. Donaldson.

"The impertinent puppy!" ejaculated the Colonel, "engrossed with his
hawk and his hound, and wearing such an insolent air of self-absorption
in the presence of a lady" (for the artist had introduced a lovely young
maiden in the scene). "Poor girl!" continued the Colonel; "if she were
in any way connected with him, I am not surprised that she should look
so sad and reproachful."

Mr. Arlington's smiling glance was again turned on me; and I met it with
a hearty laugh.

"Indeed, Aunt Nancy," said the Colonel, who seemed strangely annoyed at
my laughter, "I think your friend does you little credit, and I can
only hope that he had some of these lordly airs drubbed out of him at
the West."

As Col. Donaldson spoke he threw down the engraving which he had held,
and pushed his chair from the table.

"I assure you, sir," I replied, "my friend has as few lordly airs as it
is possible to conceive in one born to such lord