What were you about to say to me ?" She led him up to the great open fireplace, on the andirons of which a huge log was blazing and crackling cheerfully.

Over the mantel was the picture of a handsome man in the uniform of a soldier of some twenty years back.
"Whose face is pictured there, Hilary ?" "My honored father," he answered reverently, but in some surprise.
"And how died he ?" "On the Plains of Abraham, mother, as you well know." "Fighting for his king ?" "Yes, mother." "And who is this one ?" she said, passing to another picture.
"Sir James Talbot; he struck for his king at Worcester," he volunteered.
"Yes, Hilary; and here is his wife, Lady Caroline Talbot, my grandmother.

She kept the door against the Roundheads while the prince escaped from her castle, to which he had fled after the battle.

And over there is Lord Cecil Talbot, her father; he fell at Naseby.

There in that corner is another James, his brother, one of Prince Rupert's men, wounded at Marston Moor.