"Philip!" said his mother, suddenly, "the tie of your cravat is quite a quarter of an inch on one side!"
"A quarter of a fiddle-stick, my dear Mother!" said Philip, laughing. "What do you think it will look like when I have been an hour in action! I hope they will let me head a charge. I expect to be made a Prince of the Empire at the very least! Good-bye, Mother."
"Adieu, my son," responded Lady Ingram, a little less languidly than usual. "Don't go into danger, Philip."
"What admirable advice to an officer of His Majesty's army!" returned Philip, kissing her. "Good-bye, little Celia. I have something to tell you when I come back."
Celia looked up from Philip's kiss into his eyes to see what it was. They were deeper and softer than usual, but she read nothing there.
"Good-bye, dear Philip. God keep you!" she said.
"And you—both," replied Philip, in a softened tone. "Adieu!" And he was gone.
All that day Celia could do nothing. She wondered to see Lady Ingram sit quietly knotting, as if the day of the battle of Denain were no more to her than other days. But the day passed like other days; they dined and drank chocolate, and the dusk came on, and Lady Ingram ceased knotting. She had been out of the room a few minutes when Patient put her head in at the door.
"Madam," she said, in her quiet, unmoved voice, "Sir Edward is below, and a strange gentleman with him. Will you speak with him while I find my Lady?"
Celia rose and went down into the dining-room, very curious to make the acquaintance of her unknown brother. But it was not the unknown brother upon whom her eyes first fell. She saw merely that he was there—a tall, dark, grave-looking man; but beside him stood a fair-haired man, a little older than himself, and with a cry of "Harry! dear, dear Harry!" Celia flew to him. Harry's greeting was quite as warm as Celia's, but graver.