"So am I," cried her parent; "I see that we shall agree."
"Above all I love William Thackeray."
"Here," he laughed and said, "you have my consent; it is a family failing."
"Oh, what a beautiful old place!" she exclaimed, as she paused before a little spotted landscape, in the midst of which stood a stately and picturesque mansion.
"Yes, Charne Hall; I was born there."
She moved in order to examine it still closer, thinking of the appalling contrast between her father's birthplace and his present abode.
"It has been in our family since the reign of James I.; my cousin has it now. He married a woman of large fortune; they have no children."
Verona turned and glanced at him. Her thoughts flew to Nicky. Was Nicky the heir to this ancestral English home?
"It is a beautiful place," continued her father, gazing at the picture with eyes of deep affection; "it is the sort of mansion house agents cry up, with its saloon, suite of drawing-rooms, picture gallery, library, and forty or fifty bedrooms; but if it was only a little roadside cottage I should love it just as much. I am proud of being a Chandos of Charne. In all the ups and downs of my life I have remembered this fact, and kept the name spotless, to the best of my power. You can never guess, my dear, what sacrifices this has cost me, miserable and insignificant as I am. I have upheld our name. Were any one belonging to me to dishonour or disgrace it, it would kill me." He spoke with such vehemence and suppressed passion, that he seemed transformed.
"Here," he continued as he unlocked a drawer, and produced a large photograph, which showed the place on a much finer scale. "And here," he added, placing another picture in her hand. It was a photograph of a pretty girl in her teens, the face was sweet, the dress old-fashioned, "Oh, no, not that," hastily seizing it. "But this—it is your grandfather." It was a photograph, from a portrait, of a handsome, haughty, elderly man.