in her countenance.  She had more character, indeed, than was told by her face, which is generally so true an index of the mind.  Her education had been as good as England could afford, and her intellect had been sufficient to enable her to make use of it.  But her chief charm in the eyes of many consisted in the fact, doubted by none, that she was every inch a lady.  She was an only daughter, too,—­with an only brother; and as the Ancrums were all rich, she would have a very pretty fortune of her own.  Fred Neville, who had literally been nobody before his cousin had died, might certainly do much worse than marry her.

And after a day or two they did seem to get on very well together.  He had reached Scroope on the 21st, and on the 23rd Mrs. Neville arrived with her youngest son Jack Neville.  This was rather a trial to the Earl, as he had never yet seen his brother’s widow.  He had heard when his brother married that she was fast, fond of riding, and loud.  She had been the daughter of a Colonel Smith, with whom his brother, at that time a Captain Neville, had formed acquaintance;—­and had been a beauty very well known as such at Dublin and other garrison towns.  No real harm had ever been known of her, but the old Earl had always felt that his brother had made an unfortunate marriage.  As at that time they had not been on speaking terms, it had not signified much;—­but there had been a prejudice at Scroope against the Captain’s wife, which by no means died out when the late Julia Smith became the Captain’s widow with two sons.  Old reminiscences remain very firm with old people,—­and Lord Scroope was still much afraid of the fast, loud beauty.  His principles told him that he should not sever the mother from the son, and that as it suited him to take the son for his own purposes, he should also, to some extent, accept the mother also.  But he dreaded the affair.  He dreaded Mrs. Neville; and he dreaded Jack, who had been so named after his gallant grandfather, Colonel Smith.  When Mrs. Neville arrived, she was found to be so subdued and tame that she could hardly open her mouth before the old Earl.  Her loudness, if she ever had been loud, was certainly all gone,—­and her fastness, if ever she had been fast, had been worn out of her.  She was an old woman, with the relics of great beauty, idolizing her two sons for whom all her life had been a sacrifice, in weak health, and prepared, if necessary, to sit in silent awe at the feet of the Earl who had been so good to her boy.

“I don’t know how to thank you for what you have done,” she said, in a low voice.

“No thanks are required,” said the Earl.  “He is the same to us as if he were our own.”  Then she raised the old man’s hand and kissed it,—­and the old man owned to himself that he had made a mistake.

As to Jack Neville—.  But Jack Neville shall have another chapter opened on his behalf.

CHAPTER IV.