“I will have your traps brought in here,” said Carew, throwing away the end of his cigar, and drawing from his pocket a heap of filberts; “it will be more convenient.  You will find a room through yonder door, where you can sit and paint to your heart’s content.”

“You lodge me so splendidly, Sir, that I shall feel like Christopher Sly,” observed the young fellow, gratefully.

“Ay, sly enough, I’ll warrant,” returned the Squire, who had just cracked a nut and found it a bad one.  “That’s Bred in the Bone with you, I reckon.  Look yonder!” As he spoke, a porcelain vase clock upon the chimney-piece struck the half hour, and a gilt serpent sprang from the pedestal, showing its fang, which was set in brilliants.  “That’s my serpent clock, which always reminds me of Madam, your mother, and the more so, because it goes for a twelvemonth, which was just the time she and I went in double harness.  But here are your clothes, and you must be quick in getting into them, for we dine sharp at Crompton.—­Watson, go to my man, and bid him fetch a red coat for this gentleman.—­You’ll hear the gong, Mr. Yorke, five minutes before dinner is served.”  And with a careless nod to his guest, and a whistle to his four-footed companion, Carew sauntered off.

The young man would have given much to have had half an hour at his disposal to think over the events of the last few minutes, and to reflect upon his present position; but there was no time to lose, if he would avoid giving umbrage to his host by being late.  He therefore dressed in haste, and before the first note of the gong was heard was fully equipped.  If the Squire, in introducing him to this splendid lodging, had had it in his mind to overcome him by a mere exhibition of magnificence, the design had failed; it was only Yorke’s artistic sense that had been impressed; the fact was that the young fellow was of that character on whom superiority of any sort has small effect; while in the present case the signs of wealth about him gave him self-confidence, rather than any feeling of inferiority; insomuch as he considered himself “by rights,” as the Squire had said, the heir of all he saw, and by no means despaired of becoming so, not only de jure, but de facto.  Certainly, as he now regarded himself in the pier-glass in his scarlet coat, it was not to be wondered at that he reflected complacently that, so far as personal appearance went, he was not likely to find a superior in any of the company he was about to meet.  A handsomer young fellow had indeed never answered the importunate summons of the Crompton gong.