Opposite him, and engaged in serving coffee, is his sister, Lady Linton, who has changed greatly during the last eight years. She has grown old and wrinkled, and her face has hardened, if that could be possible. There is a cynical expression about her thin mouth, and her eyes are cold and critical in their expression, excepting when they rest upon her children, who now sit beside her, one at her right, the other at her left hand.
Percy Linton had done credit to the promise of his youth, and is a fine young man of twenty-one, honest, noble, and thoughtful beyond his years. He is lately home from Oxford, where he achieved great honors, and is now planning to return to the neglected and impoverished estate which has father’s prodigality nearly ruined, with the intention of reclaiming it and restoring it to something of the thrift and prosperity for which it was noted under the care of his grandfather, for whom he is named, and whose mantle seems to have fallen upon him.
His mother is not at all in sympathy with these plans. She wishes her son to adopt a public career. She still has strong hopes that he will fall heir to her brother’s title and property, in which case there would be no need of his spending the best years of his life in striving to redeem a heavily-mortgaged estate.
Sir William, however, heartily approves of his noble resolve, and promises to assist him in every possible way, and, with this encouragement, he has decided to devote himself to Linton Grange.
Lillian Linton is a brilliant and beautiful girl of nineteen. She is a clear brunette, with a lovely bloom on her cheeks, vividly red lips, dark eyes and hair. Her features are delicate and regular; she is tall and finely formed, attractive in manner, but in disposition and temperament she is much like her mother.
The remaining individual of the group was Rupert Hamilton, Sir William Heath’s ward, and the child of his dear friend, Major Hamilton, who died several years ago. He is now a young man of twenty, tall and stalwart in form, with a well-shaped head set proudly upon a pair of square, broad shoulders. He has a handsome and intelligent face, with a pair of full, wine-brown eyes, which always meet yours with a clear, steady gaze, that proclaims a noble character and a clear conscience.
His nose is something after the Roman type, his mouth firm and strong, yet when he smiles, as sweet and expressive as a woman’s. One would know at a glance that he was true and generous, kind and genial.
One could perceive also that Sir William loved him like a son by the affectionate glances which he bent upon him, by his answering smile whenever their eyes met, and the confidential tone which he used when addressing him.
The young heir to half a million pounds thought his guardian the noblest man in the world, and he would have deemed no service too difficult or disagreeable to perform for him.
He knew something of the trouble of his early life, that he had been married and parted from his wife, although he had never heard her name spoken, or asked a single question upon the subject, and he had always felt a peculiar tenderness and sympathy for him on this account.