h," she
said; "it is so provoking of my father; he never gives one the least
warning when he is going to ask any one to dinner."

"Not at all--not at all," he answered hurriedly. "It is I who ought to
apologise, coming down on you like--like----"

"A wolf on the fold," suggested Ida.

"Yes, exactly," he went on earnestly, looking at his coat, "but not in
purple and gold."

"Well," she went on laughing, "you will get very little to eat for
your pains, and I know that soldiers always like good dinners."

"How do you know that, Miss de la Molle?"

"Oh, because of poor James and his friends whom he used to bring here.
By the way, Colonel Quaritch," she went on with a sudden softening of
the voice, "you have been in Egypt, I know, because I have so often
seen your name in the papers; did you ever meet my brother there?"

"I knew him slightly," he answered. "Only very slightly. I did not
know that he was your brother, or indeed that you had a brother. He
was a dashing officer."

What he did not say, however, was that he also knew him to have been
one of the wildest and most extravagant young men in an extravagant
regiment, and as such had to some extent shunned his society on the
few occasions that he had been thrown in with him. Perhaps Ida, with a
woman's quickness, divined from his tone that there was something
behind his remark--at any rate she did not ask him for particulars of
their slight acquaintance.

"He was my only brother," she continued; "there never were but we two,
and of course his loss was a great blow to me. My father cannot get
over it at all, although----" and she broke off suddenly, and rested
her head upon her hand.

At this moment the Squire was heard advancing down the stairs,
shouting to the servants as he came.

"A thousand pardons, my dear, a thousand pardons," he said as he
entered the room, "but, well, if you will forgive particulars, I was
quite unable to discover the whereabouts of a certain necessary
portion of the male attire. Now, Colonel Quaritch, will you take my
daughter? Stop, you don't know the way--perhaps I had better show you
with the candle."

Accordingly he advanced out of the vestibule, and turning to the left,
led the way down a long passage till he reached the dining-room. This
apartment was like the vestibule, oak-panelled, but the walls were
decorated with family and other portraits, including a very curious
painting of the Castle itself, as it was before its de