Ada and Edith were together when the order came. Edith was to go down and present herself before Captain Yorke Clayton.
"Mercy me!" said Edith jumping up, "I hope they won't shoot at him through the window whilst I am there."
"Oh! Edith, how can you think of such a thing?"
"It would be very unpleasant if some assassin were to take my back hair for Captain Clayton's brown head. They're very nearly the same colour."
And Edith prepared to leave the room, hearing her brother's slow, heavy step as he passed before the door.
"Won't you go first and brush your hair?" said Ada; "and do put a ribbon on your neck."
"I'll do nothing of the kind. It would be a sheer manœuvring to entrap a man who ought to be safeguarded against all such female wiles. Besides, I don't believe a bit that Captain Clayton would know the difference between a young lady with or without a ribbon. What evidence I can give;—that's the question."
So saying, Edith descended to her father's room.
She found Florian with his hand upon the door, and they both entered the room. I have said that Captain Clayton was a remarkably good-looking man, and I ought, perhaps, to give some explanation of the term when first introducing him to the reader in the presence of a lady who is intended to become the heroine of this story; but it must suffice that I have declared him to be good-looking, and that I add to that the fact that though he was thirty-five years old, he did not look to be more than five-and-twenty. The two peculiarities of his face were very light blue eyes, and very long moustachios. "Florian and I have come to see the latter-day hero," said Edith laughing as she entered the room; "though I know that you are so done up with pistols that no peaceable young woman ought to come near you." To this he made some sportive reply, and then before a minute had passed over their heads he had taken Florian by the hand.