"This person has been with you, I find, Mary Ursula! Very wrong of Stephen to have brought him up here! I wonder what possessed him to do it?"
"I am glad he did bring him, papa," was her impulsive answer. "You have no idea what a sensible, pleasant young man he is. I could almost wish he were more even than a cousin--a brother."
"Why, my dear, you must be dreaming!" cried the banker, after a pause of astonishment. "Cousin!--brother! It does not do to take strange people on trust in this way. The man may be, and I dare say is, an adventurer," he continued, testily: "no more related to the Castlemaines than I am related to the King of England."
She laughed. "You may take him upon trust, papa, without doubt or fear. He is a Castlemaine all over, save in the height. The likeness to grandpapa is wonderful; it is so even to you and to uncle James. But he says he has all needful credential proofs with him."
The banker, who was then looking from the window, stood fingering the bunch of seals that hung from his long and massive watch-chain, his habit sometimes when in deep thought. Self-interest sways us all. The young man was no doubt the individual he purported to be: but if he were going to put in a vexatious claim to Greylands' Rest, and so upset James, the banker might get no loan from him. He turned to his daughter.
"You believe, then, my dear, that he is really what he makes himself out to be--Basil's son?"
"Papa, I think there is no question of it. I feel sure there can be none. Rely upon it, the young man is not one who would lay himself out to deceive, or to countenance deception: he is evidently honest and open as the day. I scarcely ever saw so true a face."
"Well, I am very sorry," returned the banker. "It may bring a great deal of trouble upon James."
"In what way can it bring him trouble, papa?" questioned Mary Ursula, in surprise.
"This young man--as I am informed--has come over to put in a claim to Greylands' Rest."