"O yes, I know the place well; in fact I spent a good part of my boyhood here. Will you think me very unpardonably curious if I ask your name, and how long you have been living in Edendale? I know Sir Charles Ferrars, and I don't remember his having ever spoken of any new arrivals; and he generally keeps himself _au courant_ with the affairs of the neighbourhood, though he seldom honours it with his presence. That is why I ask."
"No, I don't suppose he _would_ have spoken of us even if he had been at the Court when we came here," says Doris a little bitterly. "We didn't arrive here with a flourish of trumpets exactly. But I am not paying attention to your questions. My name is Doris Merivale, and we have been here, let me see, rather more than four months, or _about_ four, I think. Now, I think you ought to tell me _your_ name. One good turn deserves another, you know."
"Exactly. My name is Ferrars--Lancelot Ferrars," he says carelessly and a little absently. "In fact I am a distant relation of Sir Charles."
"Oh," says Doris, and subsides into silence.
"Merivale!" repeats Mr. Ferrars softly to himself. "Have you an aunt living in London, Miss Merivale, by name Lady Woodhouse? I am sure I have seen your face somewhere before, and I can only think that it was in a frame on one of her tables."
"Very likely," remarks the girl sadly. "She used to be rather fond of talking about her eldest niece, who was to have been presented at the first drawing-room this season. Yes, she is our aunt. And so you know her? Did she tell you of our come-down in the world?"
"She told me," says Mr. Ferrars, looking kindly at the flushed face, which showed the girl's bitter thoughts and emotions, "of the sudden misfortunes of a sister and her family--not of any _come-down_, as you express it. One need not necessarily come down with adversity, you know."
Doris looks gratefully at him, then swallowing the lump in her throat she says, trying to smile, "No, perhaps not; but it makes one very cross and discontented, I think."
"Does it? You do not look either the one or the other, so far as I can see."
"O, you don't know what I am at home," says the girl shaking her head gloomily. "Now, although I have certainly enjoyed my morning out here, I have an uncomfortable sort of feeling (conscience, I suppose) that I ought to be at home domesticating. But I am not above confessing that I cordially _hate_ anything of the kind; and so I was wicked and played truant and left poor Honor to do all the work by herself."