come at Les Tourelles could hardly be
more cordial than that accorded to Argus. She had left home because
nobody wanted her there. How could she expect that anyone wanted her
here, where she was a stranger, preceded, perhaps, by the reputation of
her vices? The woman in the rusty mourning-gown, the man in the shabby
raiment and clod-hopper boots, gave her no smile of greeting. Over this
new home of hers there hung an unspeakable melancholy. Her heart sank
as she crossed the threshold.

Oh, what a neglected, poverty-stricken air the garden had, after the
gardens Violet Tempest had been accustomed to look upon! Ragged trees,
rank grass, empty flower-beds, weeds in abundance. A narrow paved
colonnade ran along one side of the house. They went by this paved way
to a dingy little door--not the hall-door, that was never opened--and
entered the house by a lobby, which opened into a small parlour, dark
and shabby, with one window looking into a court-yard. There were a
good many books upon the green baize table-cover; pious books mostly,
Vixen saw, with a strange revulsion of feeling; as if that were the
culmination of her misery. There was an old-fashioned work-table, with
a faded red silk well, beside the open window. A spectacle-case on the
work-table, and an armchair before it, indicated that the room had been
lately occupied. It was altogether one of the shabbiest rooms Vixen had
ever seen--the furniture belonging to the most odious period of
cabinet-making, the carpet unutterably dingy, the walls mildewed and
mouldy, the sole decorations some pale engravings of naval battles,
which might be the victories or defeats of any maritime hero, from
Drake to Nelson.

"Come and see the house," said the Captain, reading the disgust in his
stepdaughter's pale face.

He opened a door leading into the hall, a large and lofty apartment,
with a fine old staircase ascending to a square gallery. The heavy oak
balusters had been painted white, so had the panelling in the hall.
Time had converted both to a dusky gray. Some rusty odds and ends of
armour, and a few dingy family portraits decorated the walls; but of
furniture there was not a vestige.

Opening out of the hall there was a large long room with four windows
looking into a small wilderness that had once been a garden, and
commanding a fine view of land and sea. This the Captain called the
drawing-room. It was sparsely furnished with a spindle-legged table,
half-a-dozen armchai