Mr.Amedroz and his daughter were sitting in a small drawing-room, which looked out to the front of the house and he, seated in his accustomed chair, near the window, could see the arrival.

For a moment or two he remained quiet in his chair, as though he would not allow so insignificant a thing as his cousin's coming to ruffle him;--but he could not maintain this dignified indifference, and before Belton was out of the gig he had shuffled out into the hall.
Clara followed her father almost unconsciously and soon found herself shaking hands with a big man, over six feet high, broad in the shoulders, large limbed, with bright quick grey eyes, a large mouth, teeth almost too perfect and a well-formed nose, with thick short brown hair and small whiskers which came but half-way down his cheeks--a decidedly handsome man with a florid face, but still, perhaps, with something of the promised roughness of the farmer.

But a more good-humoured looking countenance Clara felt at once that she had never beheld.
"And you are the little girl that I remember when I was a boy at Mr.
Folliott's ?" he said.

His voice was clear, and rather loud, but it sounded very pleasantly in that sad old house.
"Yes; I am the little girl," said Clara, smiling.
"Dear, dear! and that's twenty years ago now," said he.
"But you oughtn't to remind me of that, Mr.Belton." "Oughtn't I?
Why not ?" "Because it shows how very old I am." "Ah, yes;--to be sure.

But there's nobody here that signifies.