“You know I am supposed to be going away abroad for a long time,” he continued.  “You must take my place, Evelyn, in a sort of way, and I will introduce you to-day to the people you must look after.  There is a grandson of my mother’s nurse, for example:  I promised to do something for him when he completed his apprenticeship; and two old ladies who have seen better days—­they are not supposed to accept any help, but you can make wonderful discoveries about the value of their old china, and carry it off to Bond Street.  I will leave you plenty of funds; before my nephew comes into the place there will be sufficient for him and to spare.  But as for yourself, Evelyn, I want you to take some little souvenir—­how about this?”

He went and fetched a curious old silver drinking-cup, set round the lip and down the handle with uncut rubies and sapphires.

“I don’t like the notion of the thing at all,” Lord Evelyn said, rather gloomily; but it was not the cup that he was refusing thus ungraciously.

“After a time people will give me up for lost; and I have left you ample power to give any one you can think of some little present, don’t you know, as a memento—­whatever strikes your own fancy.  I want Natalie to have that Louis XV. table over there—­people rather admire the inlaid work on it, and the devices inside are endless.  However, we will make out a list of these things afterward.  Will you drive me down to the village now?  I want you to see my pensioners.”

“All right—­if you like,” Lord Evelyn said; though his heart was not in the work.

He walked out of this little room and made his way to the front-door, fancying that Brand would immediately follow.  But Brand returned to that room, and opened the case of miniatures.  Then he took from his pocket a little parcel, and unrolled it:  it was a portrait of Natalie—­a photograph on porcelain, most delicately colored, and surrounded with an antique silver frame.  He gazed for a minute or two at the beautiful face, and somehow the eyes seemed sad to him.  Then he placed the little portrait—­which itself looked like a miniature—­next the miniature of his mother, and shut the case and locked it.

“I beg your pardon, Evelyn, for keeping you waiting,” he said, at the front-door.  “Will you particularly remember this—­that none of the portraits here are to be disturbed on any account whatever?”

CHAPTER XLVII.

AT PORTICI.

Natalie slept far from soundly the first night after her arrival in Naples; she was glad when the slow, anxious hours, with all their bewildering uncertainties and forebodings, were over.  She rose early, and dressed quickly; she threw open the tall French windows to let in the soft silken air from the sea; then she stepped out on the balcony to marvel once more—­she who knew Naples well enough—­at the shining beauty around her.