“Well, well, we can’t discuss the question now, and will endeavour to act for the best, my dear,” said the old man, still intent upon his glasses.  “I hear the carriage.  I will bring Mr. John in.”  He returned in a minute or two, accompanied by a tall and gaunt individual, who, in his black clothes and white necktie, looked a cross between a superior undertaker and a Methodist preacher.  His features were strongly marked, and the expression of his countenance was both severe and melancholy, and, judging by his expression and his voice, which was harsh and lachrymose, his particular form of religion did not appear to afford him either amusement or consolation.

“This is your cousin, Mr. John Heron,” said poor Mr. Wordley, who was evidently suffering from the effects of his few minutes’ conversation with that gentleman.

Mr. John Heron surveyed the slight figure and white face with its sad, star-like eyes—­surveyed it with a grim kind of severity, which was probably intended for sympathy, and extending a cold, damp hand, which resembled an extremely bony shoulder of mutton, said, in a rasping, melancholy voice: 

“How do you do, Ida?  I trust you are bearing your burden as becomes a Christian.  We are born to sorrow.  The train was three-quarters of an hour late.”

“I am sorry,” said Ida in her low voice, leaving him to judge whether she expressed regret for our birthright of misery or the lateness of the train.  “Will you have some lunch—­some wine?” she asked, a dull, vague wonder rising in her mind that this grim, middle-class man should be of kith and kin with her dead father.

“Thank you; no.  I had an abernethy biscuit at the station.”  He drew back from, and waved away, the tray of wine which Jason at this moment brought in.  “I never touch wine.  I, and all mine, are total abstainers.  Those who fly to the wine-cup in moments of tribulation and grief rely on a broken reed which shall pierce their hand.  I trust you do not drink, Cousin Ida?”

“No—­yes; sometimes; not much,” she replied, vaguely, and regarding him with a dull wonder; for she had never seen this kind of man before.

Mr. Wordley poured out a glass of wine, and, in silent indignation, handed it to her; and, unconscious of the heavy scowl with which Mr. John Heron regarded her, she put her lips to it.

“A glass of wine is not a bad thing at any time,” said the old lawyer; “especially when one is weakened and prostrated by trouble.  Try and drink a little more, my dear.”

“It is a matter of opinion, of conviction, of principle,” said Mr. John Heron, grimly, as if he were in the pulpit.  “We must be guided by the light of our consciences; we must not yield to the seductive in fineness of creature comfort.  We are told that strong drink is raging—­” This was rather more than Mr. Wordley could stand, and, very red in the face, he invited Mr. John Heron to go up to the room which had been prepared for him.