.

THE ASHBURNS.
Gregory Ashburn pushed back his chair and made shift to rise from the table at which he and his brother had but dined.
He was a tall, heavily built man, with a coarse, florid countenance set in a frame of reddish hair that hung straight and limp.

In the colour of their hair lay the only point of resemblance between the brothers.
For the rest Joseph was spare and of middle weight, pale of face, thin-lipped, and owning a cunning expression that was rendered very evil by virtue of the slight cast in his colourless eyes.
In earlier life Gregory had not been unhandsome; debauchery and sloth had puffed and coarsened him.

Joseph, on the other hand, had never been aught but ill-favoured.
"Tis a week since Worcester field was fought," grumbled Gregory, looking lazily sideways at the mullioned windows as he spoke, "and never a word from the lad." Joseph shrugged his narrow shoulders and sneered.

It was Joseph's habit to sneer when he spoke, and his words were wont to fit the sneer.
"Doth the lack of news trouble you ?" he asked, glancing across the table at his brother.
Gregory rose without meeting that glance.
"Truth to tell it does trouble me," he muttered.
"And yet," quoth Joseph, "tis a natural thing enough.