“Why, this is a real castle!” “You don’t say!” “Yes, beheaded in the hall.”  “Miss Trumpet has all the statistics.  She read them in the guide-book coming along.”  “I calculate she knows more about your family history, Dook, than you know yourself,” etc., etc.

“What a pity they have voices like that!” exclaimed Lady Tilchester.  “I know Berty will be put off, he is so ridiculously fastidious, and it is absolutely necessary that he should marry an heiress.”

“The niece is young.  Perhaps hers could be softened,” I said.  “She is so pretty, too.”

Lady Tilchester looked at me suddenly.  She had not listened to what I said.

“Oh, dear Mrs. Gurrage, you will help us to secure this girl?  I ask you frankly, because, of course, the Duke is in love with you, and he naturally would not be impressed with Miss Trumpet.”

I should have been angry if any one else had said this.  But there is something so adorable about Lady Tilchester she can say anything.

“You are quite mistaken.  I have only seen the Duke at your house,” I said, smiling, “and a man cannot get in love on so short an acquaintance, can he?—­besides, my being only just married.”

“I suppose you have not an idea how beautiful you are, dear,” she said, kindly.  “Much as I like you, I almost wish you were not staying here now.”

“I promise I will do my best to encourage the Duke to marry Miss Trumpet, if you wish it,” I said, “I think he knows it is a necessity from what he said to me.”

“Then I shall carry you up-stairs this afternoon out of harm’s way,” she said, with her exquisite smile.  “Berty always gives me a dear little sitting-room next my room, and we can have a regular school-girls’ chat over the fire.”

Nothing could have pleased me better.  I would rather talk to this dear lady than any Duke in the world.

After lunch some introductions were gone through.

“Now I am proud to be presented to you,” said the aunt to Lady Tilchester, with perfect composure.  “We have heard a great deal of you in our country, and my niece, Miss Trumpet, has always had the greatest admiration for your photograph.”

The niece, meanwhile, talked to me.

There is something so fresh and engaging about her that in a few moments one almost forgot her terrible voice.

“Why, it does seem strange,” she said, “with the veneration we have in America for really old things, to hear the Duke” (she does not quite say Dook, like the aunt.  It sounds more like Juke) “call this castle an old ‘stone-heap.’  I am just longing to see the place his ancestor was beheaded upon in May, 1485.  The Duke hardly seems to know about it, but I have been led to expect, from the guide-book, that I should see the blood on the stones.”

The beautiful young man, Lord Luffton, now engaged her in conversation, and as Lady Tilchester and I left the hall both he and the Duke were escorting Miss Trumpet to the dais—­no doubt to turn up the carpet and search for the traditional blood upon the steps.