her?"

"Exceedingly. The boy is most affectionate by nature, and of course
she is prominent in his affections. Next to me he loves her."

The General now turned away the conversation to other subjects; but
from his abstracted manner it was evident that Mrs. Hart was still
foremost in his thoughts.

CHAPTER III.

THE BARTER OF A LIFE.

Two evenings afterward a carriage drove up to the door of Chetwynde
Castle, and a young man alighted. The door was opened by the old
butler, who, with a cry of delight, exclaimed:

"Master Guy! Master Guy! It's welcome ye are. They've been lookin'
for you these two hours back."

"Any thing wrong?" was Guy's first exclamation, uttered with some
haste and anxiety.

"Lord love ye, there's naught amiss; but ye're welcome home, right
welcome, Master Guy," said the butler, who still looked upon his
young master as the little boy who used to ride upon his back, and
whose tricks were at once the torment and delight of his life.

The old butler himself was one of the heirlooms of the family, and
partook to the full of the air of antiquity which pervaded the place.
He looked like the relic of a by-gone generation. His queue,
carefully powdered and plaited, stood out stiff from the back of his
head, as if in perpetual protest against any new-fangled notions of
hair-dressing; his livery, scrupulously neat and well brushed, was
threadbare and of an antediluvian cut, and his whole appearance was
that of highly respectable antediluvianism. As he stood there with
his antique and venerable figure his whole face fairly beamed with
delight at seeing his young master.

"I was afraid my father might be ill," said Guy, "from his sending
for me in such a hurry."

"Ill?" said the other, radiant. "My lord be better and cheerfuler
like than ever I have seen him since he came back from Lunnon--the
time as you was a small chap, Master Guy. There be a gentleman
stopping here. He and my lord have been sittin' up half the night
a-talkin'. I think there be summut up, Master Guy, and that he be
connected with it; for when my lord told me to send you the telegram
he said as it were on business he wanted you, but," he added, looking
perplexed, "it's the first time as ever I heard of business makin' a
man look cheerful."

Guy made a jocular observation and hurried past him into the hall. As
he entered he saw a figure standing at the foot of the great
staircase. It was Mrs. Hart. She was trembling