r," Mrs. Barton said. "It would be
charming for Janie, and for me too. But, unfortunately, that can't be."
She had her hand on the handle of the half-open door. As she spoke there
was a quick step on the stairs, and Percival Thorne went by. A slanting
light from the window in the passage fell on his sombre, olive-tinted
face with a curiously picturesque effect. An artist might have painted
him, emerging thus from the dusky shadows. He carried himself with a
defiant pride--was he not Judith's friend and champion?--and bowed, with
a glance that was at once eager and earnest, when he caught sight of the
young girl behind her friend's substantial figure. His strongly-marked
courtesy was so evidently natural that it could not strike any one as an
exaggeration of ordinary manners, but rather as the perfection of some
other manners, no matter whether those of a nation or a time, or only
his own. Mrs. Barton was startled and interested by the sudden
apparition. The good lady was romantic in her tastes, and this was like
a glimpse of a living novel. "Who was that?" she asked hurriedly.

"Mr. Thorne. He lodges here," said Judith.

"A friend of your brother's?"

"He was very good to my brother."

"Ah!" said Mrs. Barton. "My dear, he is very handsome."

Judith smiled.

"He is!" exclaimed her friend. "Don't say he isn't, for I sha'n't
believe you mean it. He is _very_ handsome--like a Spaniard, like a
cavalier, like some one in a tragedy. Now, isn't he?"

Mrs. Barton's romantic feelings found no outlet in her daily round of
household duties. Mr. Barton was good, but commonplace; so was Janie;
and Mrs. Barton was quite conscious that there was nothing poetical or
striking in her own appearance. But Miss Lisle, with her "great, grave
griefful air," was fit to take a leading part in poem or drama, and here
was a man worthy to play hero passing her on the staircase of a dingy
lodging-house! Mrs. Barton built up a romance in a moment, and was quite
impatient to bid Judith farewell, that she might work out the details as
she walked along the street.

The unconscious hero of her romance was divided between pleasure and
regret when he heard of the treaty concluded with Miss Macgregor. It was
much that Judith could remain at Brenthill, but one day, on his way to
dinner, he went and looked at the outside of the house which was to be
her home, and its aspect did not please him. It stood in a gloomy
street: it was prim, straight, narro