'And your fine rocks?' said Laura.

'I wish you could see the Shag stone,--a great island mass, sloping on
one side, precipitous on the other, with the spray dashing on it. If
you see it from ever so far off, there is still that white foam coming
and going--a glancing speck, like the light in an eye.'

'Hark! a carriage.'

'The young man and the young man's companion,' said Charles.

'How can you?' said Laura. 'What would any one suppose Mr. Thorndale
to be?'

'Not Philip's valet,' said Charles, 'if it is true that no man is a
hero to his "valley-de-sham"; whereas, what is not Philip to the
Honourable James Thorndale?'

'Philip, Alexander, and Bucephalus into the bargain,' suggested Amy, in
her demure, frightened whisper, sending all but Laura into a fit of
laughter, the harder to check because the steps of the parties
concerned were heard approaching.

Mr. Thorndale was a quiet individual, one of those of whom there is
least to be said, so complete a gentleman that it would have been an
insult, to call him gentleman-like; agreeable and clever rather than
otherwise, good-looking, with a high-bred air about him, so that it
always seemed strange that he did not make more impression.