He walked to the window and noticed the pouring rain that was streaming between the rustic pillars of the balustrades into the garden below.

He examined the pictures; only two of them were portraits, but in the background of one was an undoubted representation of the house itself; the other was a portrait of a beautiful boy in a blue jacket and a shirt with a wide frill laid back and open at the neck.

Under his arm appeared the head of a greyish dog.
"That creature," Brandon thought, "is almost exactly like my old dog Smokey.

I am very much mistaken if this is not the portrait of one of his ancestors." He turned to ask some question about it, and observed to his surprise that Mrs.Melcombe had left the room, and he was alone with Laura, who had seated herself on a sofa and taken a long piece of crochet-work from her pocket, which she was doing almost with the air of one who waits patiently till somebody else has finished his investigations.
"I thought you would be interested in that picture," she said; "you recognise it, I suppose ?" "No!" he exclaimed.
"It used not to be here," said Laura; "the dear grandmother, as long as she lived, always had it in her bedroom.

It's Mr.Mortimer, your stepfather, when he was a boy, and that was his dog, a great favourite; when he ran away the dog disappeared--it was always supposed that it ran after him.