"But, of course, you would speak nicely, having to do with books and all that sort of thing.

Do you like the Marquess ?" she asked, slipping off to another subject, with her usual irrelevance.

"He is very stern and grim; and I must confess I'm almost afraid of him.

He is quite different from Percy; they're scarcely like father and son--I mean my husband, of course." "I don't think the Marquess is very stern or hard," said Celia, musingly.

"I have only spoken to him once, but he seemed very kind," she added, with a certain hesitation; for she remembered that he had been somewhat stern in the matter of the portrait.
"Oh, I dare say it's only his manner," said Lady Heyton; "and I suppose I'm not a favoured person.