With a brother so generous and so wealthy, always ready to help him forward; with his talents; with his lithe and gorgeous beauty, the shadow of which hung on that canvas—­what might he not have accomplished? whom might he not have captivated?  And yet where and what was he?  A poor and shunned old man, occupying a lonely house and place that did not belong to him, married to degradation, with a few years of suspected and solitary life before him, and then swift oblivion his best portion.

I gazed on the picture, to fix it well and vividly in my remembrance.  I might still trace some of its outlines and tints in its living original, whom I was next day to see for the first time in my life.

So the morning came—­my last for many a day at Knowl—­a day of partings, a day of novelty and regrets.  The travelling carriage and post horses were at the door.  Cousin Monica’s carriage had just carried her away to the railway.  We had embraced with tears; and her kind face was still before me, and her words of comfort and promise in my ears.  The early sharpness of morning was still in the air; the frosty dew still glistened on the window-panes.  We had made a hasty breakfast, my share of which was a single cup of tea.  The aspect of the house how strange!  Uncarpeted, uninhabited, doors for the most part locked, all the servants but Mrs. Rusk and Branston departed.  The drawing-room door stood open, and a charwoman was washing the bare floor.  I was looking my last—­for who could say how long?—­on the old house, and lingered.  The luggage was all up.  I made Mary Quince get in first, for every delay was precious; and now the moment was come.  I hugged and kissed Mrs. Rusk in the hall.

’God bless you, Miss Maud, darling.  You must not fret; mind, the time won’t be long going over—­no time at all; and you’ll be bringing back a fine young gentleman—­who knows? as great as the Duke of Wellington, for your husband; and I’ll take the best of care of everything, and the birds and the dogs, till you come back; and I’ll go and see you and Mary, if you’ll allow, in Derbyshire;’ and so forth.

I got into the carriage, and bid Branston, who shut the door, good-bye, and kissed hands to Mrs. Rusk, who was smiling and drying her eyes and courtesying on the hall-door steps.  The dogs, who had started gleefully with the carriage, were called back by Branston, and driven home, wondering and wistful, looking back with ears oddly cocked and tails dejected.  My heart thanked them for their kindness, and I felt like a stranger, and very desolate.

It was a bright, clear morning.  It had been settled that it was not worth the trouble changing from the carriage to the railway for sake of five-and-twenty miles, and so the entire journey of sixty miles was to be made by the post road—­the pleasantest travelling, if the mind were free.  The grander and more distant features of the landscape we may see well enough from the window of the railway-carriage;