Page:What Will He Do With It? - Routledge - Volume 2.djvu/142



CHAPTER XXIV.

AGREEABLE SURPRISES ARE THE PERQUISITES OF YOUTH.

If the beauty of Lady Montfort's countenance took Lionel by surprise, still more might he wonder at the winning kindness of her address--a kindness of look, manner, voice, which seemed to welcome him not as a chance acquaintance but as a new-found relation. The first few sentences, in giving them a subject of common interest, introduced into their converse a sort of confiding household familiarity. For Lionel, ascribing Lady Montfort's gracious reception to her early recollections of his kinsman, began at once to speak of Guy Darrell; and in a little time they were walking over the turf, or through the winding alleys of the garden, linking talk to the same theme, she by question, he by answer--he, charmed to expatiate--she, pleased to listen--and liking each other more and more, as she recognised in all he said a bright young heart, overflowing with grateful and proud affection, and as he felt instinctively that he was with one who sympathised in his enthusiasm--one who had known the great man in his busy day, ere the rush of his career had paused, whose childhood had lent a smile to the great man's home before childhood and smile had left it.

As they thus conversed, Lionel now and then, in the turns of their walk, caught a glimpse of George Morley in the distance, walking also side by side with some young companion, and ever as he caught that glimpse a strange restless curiosity shot across his mind, and distracted it even from praise of Guy Darrell. Who could that be with George? Was it a relation of Lady Montfort's? The figure was not in mourning; its shape seemed slight and youthful--now it passes by that acacia tree,--standing for a moment apart and distinct from George's shadow, but its own outline dim in the deepening twilight--now it has passed on, lost amongst the laurels.

A turn in the walk brought Lionel and Lady Montfort before the windows of the house, which was not large for the rank of the owner, but commodious, with no pretence to architectural beauty--dark-red brick, a century and a half old--irregular; jutting forth here, receding there, so as to produce that depth of light and shadow which lends a