display her spoils.
Joan put tea in the silver pot over the lamp, and saw that the sideboard was well supplied with cold beef and pheasant, and that spirits and wine were set out; then she went to a glass and hastily arranged her hair.
Mr. Beaudessart was shown in by Joseph.
"Now," said the girl, "whilst the tea is brewing I am entirely at your service to show you the pictures. That over the mantelpiece is my father, and yonder is my mother, who was taken from us sixteen years go. She was a beautiful woman when young, and you can see that in middle age the traces were not gone Yonder is the portrait I told you of, Squire Hector Beaudessart, the last of the family in Pendabury. After his death the property fell to papa, though how it came about I cannot inform you. I believe it was a complicated affair."
The young man walked up to the picture and stood before it, gazing intently on the canvas. The evening sun shone into the room, not, happily, on the painting itself, but on a side wall, and the reflected light illumined the picture sufficiently for him to be able to see it distinctly.
"It is very well painted, I believe. Do you not consider it so?" asked Joan. "The artist was Knight, the academician."
"It is admirable. It portrays not only the outward features, as nose and eyes, but the inner character, resolution and remorselessness."
"I have heard that he was considered a determined old gentleman," said the girl.
"Pertinacious in pursuing his own course, impatient of contradiction, implacable in his resentments, and then—proud."
"If we have any good in us we are proud," said Joan. "Pride is a necessary factor in a man up to a certain point. It implies strength, or furnishes it. But vanity is mere weakness."
"Yes," answered the young man, "we must all have self-respect, but at the same time respect others. That I do not think my grandfather ever did if they dared to differ from him."
"Your grandfather!"
A cough behind them, as they stood contemplating the picture.
Joan knew it, whisked about, and saw her father entering the room with his stick in his hand.
"Oh, papa! I am so glad that you have arrived. Here is Mr. Beaudessart from Canada, so interested in the family portraits."
"Mr. Beaudessart," said Mr. Frobisher stiffly; "pray what Mr. Beaudessart?"
"I must apologise, sir, for my intrusion," said the young man, feeling at once a sense of chill from the presence of the squire. "I have ventured to ask Miss Frobisher to permit me to see the pictures."
"Papa!" said Joan, also aware of the coldness of her father's manner," I insisted on Mr. Beaudessart coming in, he has been so kind. Ruby was frightfully rubbed, and he lent me his mare. Had he not done so I should have had to walk home from Littlefold Wood."
"What Mr. Beaudessart may this gentleman be?" asked the squire, with a freezing manner. He was an old, spare man, with shrivelled legs, about which his trousers hung loosely, with a long, knife-like face, his hair very grey and curled about the temples. His nose was aquiline, his eyebrows thick and white, and his eyes bright and hard.
He wore a grey suit that, however, did not become him. He was one of those men with face and figure belonging to the first half of the nineteenth century, who look ill fitted in modern costume, one whom nothing would become save the high-collared coat, and the short waistcoat and abundant necktie of the reign of William IV. The studied absence of graciousness of manner assumed by Mr. Frobisher affected both the young people with a feeling of discomfort.
"My father was Walter," said the stranger; "he was son to that old gentleman yonder. My name is the same as that of my grandfather—Hector Beaudessart."
Joan was aware that something grated on and angered her father.
"My dear papa," she said, "you have no idea what a generous assistance Mr. Beaudessart has rendered me—at the sacrifice of his day's sport and pleasure. How I could have got home without his courteous and ready help I cannot tell. And having seen me to the Pendabury gates, he proposed returning home. But I would not hear of it; I insisted on his coming in and having some refreshment. Sibyll followed the hounds to the grim death, but I was brought to a full stop in the wood by the condition of Ruby."
"Sir," said Mr. Frobisher, looking straight at Mr. Beaudessart and ignoring his daughter, "I take it as a most surprising piece of assurance, your thrusting yourself into this house."
The young man coloured up, and replied with dignity—
"I grieve to my heart that you should so regard it; I am aware that there was some ill-feeling existing between yourself and my father, but I can assure you I do not share it, and I trusted that you, on your part, would have laid aside any sentiment that was bitter when the earth closed over his head. Allow me to relieve you of my presence."
"Sir," said Mr. Frobisher, bridling up and pointing at him with his stick," I repeat, and emphasise my opinion, I consider it a gross, an unwarrantable piece of effrontery your intrusion here, taking advantage of my daughter's ignorance of the world, and of circumstances that must for ever estrange our families. Your deceased father's conduct"-
"Excuse me, sir. I may be to blame for my thoughtlessness, or for my belief that human nature was gentler than I find it, but I can hear nothing against my father. He behaved always as an honourable man. What charge can you or anyone lay against him?"
"That of having formed and obstinately maintained opinions contrary to those held by his father, the author of his being and the squire of the parish!" He flourished his stick and pointed to the picture of the old Squire Hector. "He might at least have kept his views to himself. I maintain that, by his conduct, he lost the blessing which is pronounced upon dutiful sons."
"A man is free to form his own opinions," said the young Hector, "and it would be unworthy of a man to keep them to himself. If he is worth his salt he will maintain them. My father did not disguise what he felt in his heart, and he suffered for his independence. I wish you a good-day."
He bowed and looked hastily at Miss Frobisher, whose cheek burned with shame. She could not meet his eye; her own were lowered and full of tears.
"Oh, papa! Papa!" she gasped.
Mr. Beaudessart was gone.
"Papa, how could you treat him so after his great civility to me? It was I who asked him in. He was most reluctant to come here, but I insisted."
"Like a fatuous girl, you did wrong out of sheer dulness. It was a piece of outrageous impertinence in him, poking his nose into this house. I am, thank God, not dead yet, and till I am—But there, I have no patience to speak of the fellow. To come prying here! Desirous to see the pictures, indeed! He wanted to peer about at everything—take stock of all there is in the house."
"But why so, papa?"
"Why!—because, forsooth, some day Pendabury will be his."
"His—Mr. Beaudessart's!"
Joan was startled.
"Yes, his; but not one minute before I am laid in the churchyard."
"How can that be? The estate has left the Beaudessarts and come to us Frobishers."
"It
