almost religiously kept half drawn.  He had been born reticent, and great, indeed, was the emotion under which he suffered when the whole of his eyes were visible.  His nose was finely chiselled, and had little flesh.  His lips, covered by a small, dark moustache, scarcely opened to emit his speeches, which were uttered in a voice singularly muffled, yet unexpectedly quick.  The whole personality was that of a man practical, spirited, guarded, resourceful, with great power of self-control, who looked at life as if she were a horse under him, to whom he must give way just so far as was necessary to keep mastery of her.  A man to whom ideas were of no value, except when wedded to immediate action; essentially neat; demanding to be ‘done well,’ but capable of stoicism if necessary; urbane, yet always in readiness to thrust; able only to condone the failings and to compassionate the kinds of distress which his own experience had taught him to understand.  Such was Miltoun’s younger brother at the age of twenty-six.

Having noted that the glass was steady, he was about to seek the stairway, when he saw at the farther end of the entrance-hall three figures advancing arm-in-arm.  Habitually both curious and wary, he waited till they came within the radius of a lamp; then, seeing them to be those of Miltoun and a footman, supporting between them a lame man, he at once hastened forward.

“Have you put your knee out, sir?  Hold on a minute!  Get a chair, Charles.”

Seating the stranger in this chair, Bertie rolled up the trouser, and passed his fingers round the knee.  There was a sort, of loving-kindness in that movement, as of a hand which had in its time felt the joints and sinews of innumerable horses.

“H’m!” he said; “can you stand a bit of a jerk?  Catch hold of him behind, Eustace.  Sit down on the floor, Charles, and hold the legs of the chair.  Now then!” And taking up the foot, he pulled.  There was a click, a little noise of teeth ground together; and Bertie said:  “Good man—­shan’t have to have the vet. to you, this time.”

Having conducted their lame guest to a room in the Georgian corridor hastily converted to a bedroom, the two brothers presently left him to the attentions of the footman.

“Well, old man,” said Bertie, as they sought their rooms; “that’s put paid to his name—­won’t do you any more harm this journey.  Good plucked one, though!”

The report that Courtier was harboured beneath their roof went the round of the family before breakfast, through the agency of one whose practice it was to know all things, and to see that others partook of that knowledge, Little Ann, paying her customary morning visit to her mother’s room, took her stand with face turned up and hands clasping her belt, and began at once.

“Uncle Eustace brought a man last night with a wounded leg, and Uncle Bertie pulled it out straight.  William says that Charles says he only made a noise like this”—­there was a faint sound of small chumping teeth:  “And he’s the man that’s staying at the Inn, and the stairs were too narrow to carry him up, William says; and if his knee was put out he won’t be able to walk without a stick for a long time.  Can I go to Father?”