Cecil was the first lady down-stairs, all in claret colour trimmed with gray fur, with a little fur and velvet cap upon her head.

“There! it is a clear morning, and you can see the view,” said Raymond, opening the hall door.

“Very prettily undulating ground,” she said, standing on the steps, and looking over a somewhat rapid slope scattered with trees to the opposite side of the valley, where a park with a red mansion in the midst gleamed out among woods of green, red, orange, and brown tints.  “How you are shut in!  That great Spanish chestnut must be a perfect block when its leaves are out.  My father would never let it stand so near the house.”

“It is too near, but it was planted at the birth of my mother’s brother.”

“Who died?”

“Yes, at seven years old.  It was her first grief.”

“Then it would vex her if you cut it.”

Raymond laughed.  “It is hers, not mine.”

“I forgot.”  There was a good deal in the tone; but she added, “What is that place opposite?”

“Sirenwood.  It belongs to Sir Harry Vivian; but he does not live there.”

“Yes, he does,” said Cecil.  “Your brothers say he has come back with his two daughters.”

“There is only one unmarried.”

“There is a widow come to keep house for him—­Lady Tyrrell.”

“Very likely,” said Raymond; “my mother only writes with difficulty, so I hear little when I am from home.”

“Is it true that they are horrid people, very dissipated, and not fit for me to associate with?”

“That is putting it strongly,” said Raymond, quietly.  “They are not likely to be very desirable acquaintances for you, but there is no reason you should not associate with them on ordinary terms of courtesy.”

“Ah!  I understand—­as member’s wife.”

“I don’t see what that has to do with it,” said Raymond.  “Ah!  Rosamond!” as she came down in a Galway cloak over her black velveteen, “on the way to view your domain?”

“Yes, and yours,” she said, nodding to Cecil.  “You appreciate such English apple-pie order.  It looks as if you never suffered a stray leaf to dance without an old woman to hunt it down.  And what’s that red house smiling across the valley?”

“Sirenwood,” repeated Raymond; then to Julius he said, “Did you know it was inhabited again?”

“Frank said so,” answered Julius, without further remark, giving his arm to his wife, who clasped both hands on it; while the other couple looked on as if doubtful whether this were a trying duty incumbent on them.

“What is it all about?” said Rosamond, as they walked down the avenue of walnuts leading to the iron gates in the opposite direction from Sirenwood.  “Which of you was that woman’s victim?  Was it a sailor love of Miles’s?  I hope not!  That poor little African might not stand a gay ghost cropping up again.”

“Miles is far removed from the conventional sailor.”