Julius Sandal arrived the next morning when the ladies were preparing for church.  He had passed the night at Ambleside, and driven over to Sandal in the first cool hours of the day.  The squire was walking about the garden, and he saw the carriage enter the park gates.  He said nothing to any one, but laid down his pipe, and went to meet it.  Then Julius made the first step towards his uncle’s affection,—­he left the vehicle when they met, and insisted upon walking by his side.

When they reached the house, his valet was attending to the removal of his luggage, and they entered the great hall together.  At that moment Mistress Charlotte’s remarkable likeness seemed to force itself upon the squire’s attention.  He was unable to resist the impulse which made him lead his nephew up to it.  “Let me introduce you, first of all, to your father’s mother.  I greet you in her name as well as in my own.”  As he spoke, the squire lifted his hat, and Julius did the same.  It was a sudden, and to both men a quite unexpected, ceremonial; and it gave an air, touching and unusual, to his welcome.

And if that man is an ingrate who does not love his native land, how much more immediate, tender, and personal must the feeling be for the home of one’s own race.  That stately lady, who seemed to meet him at the threshold, was only the last of a long, shadowy line, whose hands were stretched out to him, even from the dark, forgotten days in which Loegberg Sandal laid the foundations of it.  Julius was sensitive, and full of imagination:  he felt his heart beat quick, and his eyes grow dim to the thought; and he loitered up the wide, low steps, feeling very like a man going up the phantom stairway of a dream.

The squire’s cheery voice broke the spell.  “We shall be ready for church in a quarter of an hour, Julius; will you remain at home, or go with us?”

“I should like to go with you.”

“That’s good.  It is but a walk through the park:  the church is almost at its gates.”

When he returned to the hall, the family were waiting for him; Mrs. Sandal and her daughters standing together in a little group, the squire walking leisurely about with his hands crossed behind his back.  It would have been to some men a rather trying ordeal to descend the long flight of stairs, with three pairs of ladies’ eyes watching him; but Julius knew that he had a striking personal appearance, and that every appointment of his toilet was faultless.  He knew also the value of the respectable middle-aged valet following him, and felt that his irreproachable manner of serving his hat and gloves was a satisfactory reflection of his own importance.