"And your papa lives at Arden?--I did not know he had any
other daughter," he added in a lower key, to himself rather than to his
companion. "Then I suppose I have the pleasure of speaking to Miss--"
"My name is Lovel My father is Marmaduke Level, of Arden Court."
The traveller looked at her with a still more puzzled air, as if singularly
embarrassed by this simple announcement. He recovered himself quickly,
however, with a slight effort.
"I am proud and happy to have made your acquaintance, Miss Lovel," he said;
"your father's family is one of the best and oldest in the North Riding."
After this, they talked of many things; of Clarissa's girlish experiences
at Belforet; of the traveller's wanderings, which seemed to have extended
all over the world.
He had been a good deal in India, in the Artillery, and was likely to
return thither before long.
"I had rather an alarming touch of sunstroke a year ago," he said, "and was
altogether such a shattered broken-up creature when I came home on sick
leave, that my mother tried her hardest to induce me to leave the service;
but though I would do almost anything in the world to please her, I could
not bring myself to do that; a man without a profession is such a lost
wretch. It is rather hard upon her, poor soul; for my elder brother died
not very long ago, and she has only my vagabond self left. 'He was the only
son of his mother, and she was a widow.
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