“That would never do!”

“Oh, I didn’t mean so.  Of course, I didn’t mean so.  How could I see any one else sitting in”—­And there were tears in her eyes and on her trembling tones.

“My dear,” said Mrs. Arles, “I am afraid, apropos of nothing at all, that you have isolated yourself from all society for too long a time already.”

Just here Hazel entered and replenished the hearth, stopping half-way, with her armful of brush, to coquet an instant in the mirror, and adjust the scarlet love-knot in her curls.

“There’s a carriage coming up the avenue, Miss,” said she, demurely.  “One of the boys”—­

“What one?” asked Mrs. Arles.

“Vane,” answered Hazel,—­carmine staining her pretty olive cheek.  “He ran before it.”

“Who can it be, at this hour?” said Eloise, half rising, with the pen in her hand, and looking at Mrs. Arles, who did not stir.

As she spoke, there was a bustle in the hall, a slamming door, a voice of command, the door opened, and a stranger stood among them, surveying the long antique room with its diamonded windows flickering in every pane, and the quaint hearth, whose leaping, crackling, fragrant blaze lighted the sombre little person sitting beside it, and sparkled on the half-bending form of that strange dark-haired girl, with her aquamarine eyes bent full on his.  He was wrapped, from head to foot, in a great sweeping brigand’s cloak, and a black, wide-brimmed hat, that had for an instant slouched its shadow down his face, hung now in his gloved hand.  Dropping cloak and hat upon a chair with an invisible motion, he advanced, an air of surprise lifting the heavy eyebrows so that they strongly accented the contrast in hue between the lower half of his face, tanned with wind and sun, and the wide, low brow, smooth as marble itself, and above which swept one great wave of dark-brown hair.  Altogether, it was an odd, fiery impression that he made,—­whether from that golden-brown tint of skin that always seems full of slumbering light, or from the teeth that flashed so beneath the triste moustache whenever the haughty lips parted and unbent their curve, or whether it were a habit the eyes seemed to have of accompanying all his thoughts with a play of flame.

“Really,” said he,—­and it may have been a subtile inner musical trait of his tone that took everybody’s will captive,—­“I was not aware”—­making a long step into the room, with a certain lordly bearing, yet almost at a loss to whom he should address himself.  “I am Earl St. George Erne.  May I inquire”—­

“My name is Eloise Changarnier,” said its owner, drawing herself up, it being incumbent on her to receive him.

He bowed, and advanced.

“Mrs. Arles, then, I presume,—­my cousin Disbrowe Erne’s cousin.  I expected to find you here.”

Mrs. Arles, after a hurried acknowledgment, slipped over to Eloise.

“I have heard your father speak of him,” she murmured.  “They had business-relations.  He is Mr. Erne’s legal heir, in default of sufficient testament, I believe.  He must have come to claim the property.”