Page:The time spirit; a romantic tale (IA timespiritromant00snaiiala).pdf/320

 Still it was their nature to meet things heroically, and they now proceeded to do so.

The picture their minds had already formed of this girl was not a pleasing one. But as far as Lady Wargrave was concerned it was shattered almost instantly. The likeness between father and daughter was amazing. She had, in quite a remarkable degree, the look of noblesse the world had always admired in him, with which, however, he had signally failed to endow the daughters of the first marriage. But there was far more than a superficial likeness to shatter preconceived ideas. Another, more virile strain was hers. The mettle of the pasture, the breath of the moorland, had given her a look of purpose and fire, even if the grace of the salon had yielded much of its own peculiar amenity. Whatever else she might be, the youngest daughter of the House of Dinneford was a personality of a rare but vivid kind.

As soon as the Duke realized that the ladies had entered the room, he gravely presented the girl, but with a touch of chivalry that she simply adored in him. The little note of homage melted in the oddest way the half-fierce constraint with which she turned instinctively to meet these enemies. Sarah bowed rather coldly, but Aunt Charlotte came forward at once with a proffered hand.

"My sister," murmured his Grace. In his eyes was a certain humor and perhaps a spice of malice.

For a moment speech was impossible. The girl looked slowly from one to the other, and then suddenly it came upon her that these people were old and hard hit. She felt a curious revulsion of feeling. Their surrender was