'If your ancestors were humble yeomen, ours were very humble gentlemen. Do look at West Wyke. Did you ever see a gentleman's house elsewhere so small, and yet so full of self-consciousness? An embattled gateway in a wall that a boy could overleap, guarding a garden of hollyhocks. A front door with a huge beam to close it, running back into the wall, to protect the family plate, which consists of one silver caudle cup, and a whalebone-handled punch-ladle with a Queen Anne's shilling in the bowl. I believe our family stood barely above high water mark, the line where the yeoman ended and the gentleman began; but so barely above it, that we were always liable to be submerged, and never able to lift ourselves wholly into a more exalted and secure position.'

'I dare say,' observed John Herring, 'that the smallness of your house has been the salvation of your family. You have not been expected to keep a large establishment; to entertain much, and to have a stable and furniture and a cellar.'

'I dare say you are right. By the way, how is the sick gentleman at the Oxenham Arms?'

'There is not much change in his condition. He is still indisposed.'

'Who is he?'

'A Cornish squire, Trecarrel by name, who is engaged to the daughter of Mr. Trampleasure.'

'No doubt Miss Mirelle will have had some of her airs taken out of her in the Trampleasure household.'

This was the first time that Cicely had voluntarily, and of her own prompting, spoken of Mirelle. Herring had mentioned her occasionally, but Cicely showed plainly that she retained no pleasant recollection of the Countess, and was uninterested in what had become of her. There was a spice of vindictiveness in her tone as she spoke. She was rejoicing that Mirelle should have her airs taken out of her.

'The poor Countess,' said Herring, 'has suffered much annoyance among those wretched people——'

'I have no patience with her,' interrupted Cicely, 'giving herself airs, and calling herself a Countess. Why, her father was only a merchant, and I cannot see how she can inherit her mother's title. The wife of an Earl is a Countess, and the daughters are Ladies, not Countesses.'