ortant individual, he would have treated me in the same
way--a way, to say the least of it, not over-burthened with courtesy."

"Had you any words together, boy?" said Sir Marmaduke, with an evident
anxiety in his look and voice.

"A mere interchange of greeting," replied Fred, laughing, "in which each
party showed his teeth, but did not bite withal. I unhappily mistook
him for a game-keeper--and worse still, told him so, and he felt
proportionably angry at the imputation--preferring, probably, to be
thought a poacher. He is a rude coarse fellow," said he with a changed
voice, "with pride to be a gentleman--but not breeding nor manner to
enact the character."

"The visit was, after all, not an agreeable one," said Miss Travers,
"and I am only surprised how you came to prolong it. You spent the whole
day there."

Although there was not the slightest degree of suspicion insinuated
by this remark, Fred stole a quick glance at his sister, to see if she
really intended more than the mere words implied. Then, satisfied that
she had not, he said in a careless way--

"Oh, the weather broke; it came on a heavy snow-storm; and as the
younger brother pressed me to remain, and I had no fancy to face the
hurricane, I sat down to a game of chess."

"Chess! Indeed, Fred, that sounds very humanizing. And how did he play?"

"It was not with him I played," answered he, hesitatingly.

"What---with the elder?"

"No, nor him either; my antagonist was a cousin--I think they called her
cousin."

"Called _her_," said Sybella, slyly. "So then, Master Fred, there was
a lady in the case. Well, we certainly have been a long while coming to
her."

"Yes, she has lately arrived--a day or two ago--from some convent in the
Low Countries, where she has lived since she was a child."

"A strange home for her," interposed Sir Marmaduke. "If I do not
misconceive them greatly, they must be very unsuitable associates for a
young lady educated in a French convent."

"So you would say, if you saw her," said Fred, seizing with avidity
at the opening, then offered, to coincide with an opinion he was
half afraid to broach. "She is perfectly foreign in look, dress, and
demeanour--with all the mannerism of Paris life, graceful and pleasing
in her address; and they, at least one of them, a downright boor--the
other, giving him credit for good looks and good nature, yet
immeasurably _her_ inferior in every respect."

"Is she pretty, Frederic?" said S