and black-haired, seems to step forward daringly, with his glance fixed
defiantly upon the spectator; but his left hand, extended behind him,
clasps that of little Kate with a protecting gesture; and her great brown
eyes rest on his face, with a look half of apprehension, half of admiring
confidence. There is a second portrait of her, taken ten years later; but
of Archibald no other authentic likeness exists. Report affirms, however,
that in 1823 and thereabout he was esteemed one of the handsomest young
fellows of his day.

The devotion of the two to each other grew with their growth. She, even at
that early age, must have given occasional foretastes of the wayward,
impulsive, and yet calculating character that was developed in her later
life; but there can be little doubt that she felt a genuine attachment to
Archibald; and he laid himself at her feet with a chivalric
single-heartedness more characteristic of the fifteenth century than of
the early nineteenth. Indeed, his jealous guardianship of her excited not
a little amusement among his seniors; and it is related that in his
twelfth year he actually commissioned Colonel Battledown to carry a formal
"message" on his behalf to the Honorable Richard Pennroyal; the latter's
offence consisting in his having taken Miss Battledown on his knee and
kissed her. The matter was, however, happily arranged on the Hon.
gentleman's expressing his regret for his indiscretion, and the Colonel
and Sir Clarence becoming answerable for his good behavior in future. But
the children's preference for each other now began to suggest other
thoughts than those of mere passing entertainment to the paternal minds.
There seemed to be no good reason why they should not ultimately make a
match of it. It was true that Kate might well expect to find a more
brilliant mate than the second son of a baronet; but, personal feeling and
the friendship of the families aside, she might do much worse than with
Archibald. The second son of Sir Clarence stood a fair chance of hereafter