This tribute earned him a gracious smile from the Dowager, who said that it had frequently been remarked that few fires gave out so fierce a heat as this one. She then desired Miss Morville, in a voice of mingled civility and condescension, to be so good as to run up to the Crimson Saloon, and to fetch from it a little hand-screen. Miss Morville at once laid aside her knitting, and departed on her errand; and, as though her absence released him from constraint, Martin looked up from his scowling scrutiny of the fire, and exclaimed: “This is a curst business! I wish it were well over! Why must we kick our heels here, waiting on his pleasure? The lord knows we don’t want him! I have a very good mind to ride over to eat my mutton with Barny!”

His cousin looked frowningly at him for a moment, but said nothing. Another candle needed attention, and he dealt with it methodically. He was a powerfully built man, nearing his thirtieth birthday, with a resolute, rather square countenance, and a good deal of reserve in his manner. The cast of his features bore a certain resemblance to that of his young cousin’s, but the likeness existed merely in the aquiline trend of the nose, the sightly heavy line of the jaw, and the set of the eyes under brows which overhung them enough to give a forbidding look to the face. The colour of his eyes was a clear, light gray, as cool and as inexpressive as lake-water; his mouth, with its firmly closed lips, betrayed no secrets, but seemed to show that its owner, besides possessing resolution of character, knew how to keep his own counsel. His address was good, and his manner had all the quiet assurance of his breeding.

With Martin, it was otherwise. Every change of mood was reflected in his eyes, so dark a brown as to appear almost black, and in the sensitive curves of his full mouth.