sh features defied her, I suppose; their secret was unfathomable,
for after a good while she raised her head, still looking at the portrait,
and sighed.

'A very singular face,' she said, softly, as a person might who was looking
into a coffin. 'Had not we better replace it?'

So the pretty oval, containing the fair golden hair and large eyes, the
pale, unfathomable sphinx, remounted to its nail, and the _funeste_ and
beautiful child seemed to smile down oracularly on our conjectures.

'So is the face in the large portrait--_very_ singular--more, I think, than
that--handsomer too. This is a sickly child, I think; but the full-length
is so manly, though so slender, and so handsome too. I always think him a
hero and a mystery, and they won't tell me about him, and I can only dream
and wonder.'

'He has made more people than you dream and wonder, my dear Maud. I don't
know what to make of him. He is a sort of idol, you know, of your father's,
and yet I don't think he helps him much. His abilities were singular; so
has been his misfortune; for the rest, my dear, he is neither a hero nor a
wonder. So far as I know, there are very few sublime men going about the
world.'

'You really must tell me all you know about him, Cousin Monica. Now don't
refuse.'

'But why should you care to hear? There is really nothing pleasant to
tell.'

'That is just the reason I wish it. If it were at all pleasant, it would be
quite commonplace. I like to hear of adventures, dangers, and misfortunes;
and above all, I love a mystery. You know, papa will never tell me, and I
dare not ask him; not that he is ever unkind, but, somehow, I am afraid;
and neither Mrs. Rusk nor Mary Quince will tell me anything, although I
suspect they know a good deal.'

'I don't see any good in telling you, dear, nor, to say the truth, any
great harm either.'

'No--now that's _quite_ true--no harm. There _can't_ be, for I _must_ know
it all some day, you know, and better now, and from _you_, than perhaps
from a stranger, and in a less favourable way.'

'Upon my word, it is a wise little woman; and really, that's not such bad
sense after all.'

So we poured out another cup of tea each, and sipped it very comfortably by
the fire, while Lady Knollys talked on, and her animated face helped the
strange story.

'It is not very much, after all. Your uncle Silas, you know, is living?'

'Oh yes, in Derbyshire.'

'So I see you do know something of him, sly girl!