class="c019">Thomas Brandon, Earl of Allerdale, had reached the age of sixty-four, a hale hearty old man, seemingly as strong and vigorous as ever.

He was a handsome man, tall and strong, with a full, broad chest; his limbs shapely and muscular, with a step as firm and light as that of youth.

He had a grand head, covered with snow-white hair, and a strongly marked face that retained much—very much—of its old-time beauty, for Tom Brandon, when he had been simple Lord Oakleigh, had been accounted one of the handsomest men of his time.

The earl was but little better off in the way of kindred than was his guest. He had a son and a grandson, and that completed the list.

His wife had died while he was still young, leaving him with one child, and he had never married again.

His son George, Lord Oakleigh, was absent in India. From him Sir William had come when he first appeared at the castle. George Brandon and William Chester were very nearly of the same age. The former was forty-six, the later one year younger.

They had been friendly in youth, had been classmates at college, and had been much together in after life.

In India they had been like brothers, a common misfortune, or calamity, having cemented the bonds of their union more firmly and more closely than ever before.

It was the death of their wives. They had resided beneath the same roof in Calcutta. There Lady Chester had been taken down with fever, and Lady Brandon had helped to nurse her.

Suffice it to say, both had the fever, and both died. Sir William was left with his little Cordelia, then only ten; Lord Oakleigh being left with a son three years older.

A few months after the sad bereavement Lord Oakleigh sent his son Matthew home to England, to the care of his father, the earl having written out an earnest request that it should be so done.

The boy had arrived safely, and from that time had been his grandfather’s charge.

Little more than a year later Sir William had begun to feel that his failing health betokened something serious. He was convinced that he should never recover in India.

He considered a perfect recovery impossible; but, were he to seek his native land, he might gain a few more years of life.

So, towards the close of the year, he had made his arrangements for returning home. Said Lord Oakleigh, after the thing had been settled, and the baronet had packed up:

“You say you have no settled home in England. Your family estate—the home of your ancestors—Leyburn Abbey, with its park and forest, you have leased for a term of years; and, of course, you can not push your tenant out, if he wishes to remain, which we know he does. So, my dear Willie, do you make your way to Allerdale, and there cast anchor. My father will be delighted to see you—delighted to hear from me—and a thousand times delighted when you tell him you have come to make a good long stop with him. There your little Cordelia will have my boy Matt to play with; and, further, the young hero will be old enough and strong enough to have a care for her. Tell me—promise me—it shall be so.”

When Sir William had finally given the required promise he had a request to make on his own account. He made it thus:

“George, I am a sicker man than you think. Should it prove in the end that I am going to England only to die, I wish to leave my child in your charge. You will be her guardian. Promise me that.”

At first George Brandon had been unwilling to listen to any such thing as his friend’s dying; but, at length, when the baronet had pushed him into a corner, he had replied:

“Look ye, William, you are going to Allerdale. That is settled. If you are to die, as you seem to think may be possible, you will die there. If that is to be, let my father be your daughter’s guardian. She could not have a better. You can arrange with him, if you please, that should he die while Cordelia is under age and I should survive him, he may transfer the authority to me. Under such circumstances I should assume the duties most cheerfully, though with sad remembrance. However, my father is a hale and hearty man, and comes of a long-lived stock. I am very sure, barring accidents, that he will live to see your daughter married.”

So Sir William had left India with the understanding that if a guardian should be required for his child the old earl should be the man.

Once Lord Oakleigh had let fall the remark that it might be a pleasant thing in the future that their children should become united in marriage; but Sir William had made no response.

Perhaps he felt that it was too early to be thinking of marriage for his little pet, and it is not impossible that he preferred to wait a few years and see what sort of a husband his friend’s son gave promise of making.

That was the first and the last word ever spoken between Lord Oakleigh and Sir William Chester regarding the marriage of their children; but it was not the last of the subject, as we shall see anon.

Sir William Chester came home to England to die. He had felt it when leaving India; he had felt it on the voyage, and he had become assured of it ere long after he had reached the fatherland.

He had made no movement towards ejecting his tenant from Leyburn Abbey. He had found rest and shelter at Allerdale, and had very soon come to love the old earl as he would have loved a father.

And the earl had quickly learned to love him. It had not needed the good word of his son. His own heart had found the lovable man; and love had been given without stint.

And the little Cordelia, now completing her twelfth year—she was like a ray of blessed sunlight in the old castle.

She was a plump little thing, bright and winsome, her silken locks giving promise of a rich golden brown; her large gray eyes, like twin stars, full of laughter and full of warm, impulsive love.

Where she loved she would love with all her heart; and strange as it may appear, her first and warmest love was given to the old earl—“Gran’pa,” she called him, with her two dimpled arms round his neck and her rosy lips pressed upon his cheek.

And the love that Lord Allerdale gave to the bright-faced little girl became part of his very life. He could not, after a time, bear to have her away from him.

He held her on his knee; he carried her in his arms; he led her in the court and in the park, and he played with her; in short, in her society he renewed, not his youth, but his very childhood. What a happy old man he was when the little child had him in full subjection.

Lord Oakleigh had spoken of another as the prospective playmate of Cordelia—his son, Matthew.

And Matthew Brandon played with her often, though she would always leave him for the companionship of his grandfather.

Matthew Brandon was now entering his sixteenth years—just the age of the smuggler’s son. He was not what would be called a handsome boy.

His complexion was dark; his hair intensely black; and his eyes, deeply set in their sockets, were small, with an unusually narrow space between them.

His face was not