untenance, whom Godwin now
knew as Miss Moorhouse. Buckland addressed his sister in a tone of
lively pleasure.

'Whom do you think I have met and brought home with me? Here is my old
friend, Godwin Peak.'

Under the two pairs of female eyes, Godwin kept a calm, if rather
stern, face.

'I should have had no difficulty in recognising Mr. Peak,' said
Sidwell, holding out her hand. 'But was the meeting quite by chance?'

To Godwin himself the question was of course directed, with a look of
smiling interest--such welcome as could not have been improved upon;
she listened to his reply, then presented him to Miss Moorhouse. A
slight languor in her movements and her voice, together with the
beautiful coldness of her complexion, made it probable that she did not
share the exuberant health manifest in her two brothers. She conversed
with mature self-possession, yet showed a slight tendency to
abstractedness. On being addressed, she regarded the speaker steadily
for an instant before shaping her answer, which always, however
trifling the subject, seemed carefully worded. In these few moments of
dialogue, Godwin reached the conclusion that Sidwell had not much sense
of humour, but that the delicacy of her mind was unsurpassable.

In Miss Moorhouse there was no defect of refinement, but her
conversation struck a note of sprightliness at once more energetic and
more subtle than is often found in English girls. Thus, though at times
she looked so young that it might be doubted whether she had long been
out of her teens, at others one suspected her older than Sidwell. The
friends happened to be as nearly as possible of an age, which was
verging to twenty-six.

When he spoke to Miss Moorhouse, Buckland's frank tone subdued itself.
He watched her face with reverent attention, smiled when she smiled,
and joined in her laughter with less than his usual volume of sound. In
acuteness he was obviously inferior to her, and there were moments when
he betrayed some nervousness under her rejoinders. All this was matter
of observation for Peak, who had learnt to exercise his discernment
even whilst attending to the proprieties.

The sounding of the first luncheon-bell left the young men free to go
upstairs. When at length they presented themselves in the drawing-room,
Mrs. Warricombe and her younger daughter sat there alone. The greeting
of his hostess did not quite satisfy Godwin, though it was sufficiently
courteous; he remembered that