In a pause of their own conversation, they heard the inquiry, 'Do you know who that boy is—that fair delicate-looking lad just opposite, with the white muslin round his hat?'
'Oh—that!' answered the pheasant lady; 'that is young Lord Somerville, son to the Marquess of Liddesdale. He and his brother, Lord Francis, have been out yachting with Captain Audley.'
The Captain smiled as he looked at the boys. 'Ay,' he observed, with a flash of his bright dark eyes,' he has the advantage over Sum.'
For Lance had resumed his lark-like air, and it was perhaps the more striking from the fragility and transparency that remained about his looks; and he was full of animation, as he, with a reinforcement of boys, clustered round a merry sunny-faced girl, full of joyous drollery.
'Very queer and eccentric—quite a bear,' was the next thing they heard; whereat Captain Audley nodded and smiled to Felix. After the general turmoil caused by the change of courses had subsided, that penetrating voice was heard again. 'Yes, we came home sooner than we had intended. The fact was, we found that old Mr. Underwood was being beset by some of those relations. You remember? Oh, yes; they have sunk very low—got into trade, absolutely got into trade! One of them a mere common singing-boy. Mr. Underwood is getting aged—quite past—and we did not know what advantage might be taken of him.'
'Your turn now,' murmured Captain Audley, with a look of diversion calculated to allay the wounded flush on his neighbour's cheek.
'Do you mean Mr. Edward Underwood's sons?' said a voice on the other side. 'I always understood them to be very respectable and well conducted.'
'Oh, very likely! Only I do happen to know that one of them has been a great trouble and vexation to Tom Underwood; and we didn't want the same over again with the poor old Squire.'
'Did I understand you that any of them were here?' added the other voice; 'for I had just been struck by the likeness of that boy opposite, talking to my sister, to poor Mr. Edward Underwood, as I remember him.'
'Oh no, Mrs. Rivers; I assure you that's young Lord Somerville!'