was graceful, and to her inferiors, gracious; but there was a look of
pride in her dark gray eyes, and a stern resolution about the
compressed lips, which struck my childish mind with strange fear, and
kept older hearts in awe. Her daughters, Florence and Agnes, were
pictures of their mother--proud, gay ladies, but thought the flower of
the county. Their portions were good, and they would have been
co-heiresses but for their brother Arthur. He was the youngest, but so
different from his mother and sisters, that you wouldn't have thought
him of the same family. His fair face and clear blue eyes, his curly
brown hair and merry look, had no likeness to them, though he was not
a whit behind them in air or stature. At eighteen, there was not a
finer lad in the shire; and he had a frank, kindly nature, which made
the tenantry rejoice in the prospect of his being their future
landlord.

Near the castle there stood a farmhouse, occupied by an old man whose
great-grandfather had cultivated the same fields. He was not rich, but
much respected by his neighbours for an honest, upright life. His wife
was as old as himself. They had been always easy-living people, and
had no child but one only daughter. Menie was a delicately pretty
girl, a little spoiled, perhaps, in her station, for both father and
mother made a queen of her at home. She was never allowed to do any
rough work, was always dressed, and her neighbours said, kept in the
parlour. Menie had a great many admirers, but her parents thought her
too good for everybody, and had a wonderful belief of their own, that
she was somehow to get a great match, and be made a lady. There was a
strange truth in that notion, as things turned out, for we servants at
the castle began to remark how often the young master was seen going
and coming about the farmhouse. Maybe the old farmer and his wife
encouraged him, for they had a story concerning their own descent from