Rosamond’s eyes sparkled with an infrequent lustre. Here was truly a miraculous occurrence. A brother—actually a brother—of the great, the noble, the world-renowned Charles Kinghart, with whose works they had been familiar ever since they could read; most of whose characters were to them household words!
Certainly there was nothing heroic about the personnel of their literary visitor—an unobtrusive-looking personage. But now that he was decorated with the name of Kinghart, glorified with the reflected halo of genius, there was visible to the book-loving maiden a world of distinction in his every gesture and fragment of speech.
Then Major Glendinning, too, a man whom few would pass without a second glance. Slightly over middle height, his symmetrical figure and complete harmony of motion stamped him as one perfected by the widest experiences of training and action. ‘Soldier’ was written emphatically by years of imprint upon the fearless gaze, the imperturbable manner, the bronzed cheek, and accurate but unostentatious dress. A man who had shouldered death and had mocked danger; who had actually shed blood in action—‘in single fight and mixed array’ (like Marmion, as Annabel said). Not in old, half-forgotten days, like their father, but in _last year’s_, well-nigh last month’s, deadly picturesque strife, of which the echoes were as yet scarcely silent. Annabel and Beatrice gazed at him as at a denizen of another planet, and left to Rosamond the more rare adoration which exalts the image of the scholar to a higher pedestal than that of the warrior.
There was, however, a sufficing audience and ample appreciation for both the recent lions, who were by no means suffered by their original captors to roar softly or feed undisturbed. Before sitting down to the unceremonious evening meal, Charles Hamilton begged Mrs. Effingham to defer leaving the drawing-room for a few moments while he made a needful explanation.
‘You will not be surprised to hear, Mrs. Effingham,’ he commenced, with an air of great deference, ‘that Mr. Kinghart shares his distinguished brother’s views as to our duties to the (temporarily) lower orders, and the compulsion under which the nobler minds of the century lie, to advance by personal sacrifice the social culture of their dependents, more particularly in the colonies, where (necessarily) the feelings are less sensitive. Mr. Kinghart, therefore, declines to partake of a meal in any house, unless the servants are invited to share the repast.’