vered, with a gasp of surprise, that the couch was empty, when a
tall, fair-haired man rose suddenly and confronted her.

"Oh," cried Nan, and stood agape with astonishment.

"I beg your pardon," drawled the stranger, and stared back out of a pair
of handsome, sleepy eyes, "You--er--you expected to see Mr Vanburgh; I
am sorry to say he is not very well--"

"Not well? Oh dear, I'm sorry! And are you the doctor?--Have you come
from town?"

"Oh no!" The tall man smiled, as if, for some reason, the idea seemed
quite preposterous to his mind. "I am not the doctor. I am Mr
Vanburgh's nephew. I was coming to visit him shortly in any case, and
as I heard that he was not well, I thought it better to come down and
see for myself exactly how he was."

"Of course. I am so vexed that I did not know about it, but I have been
so busy this week that I have not seen him since Sunday. He is really
ill? In bed? Not able to get up?"

"He has kept in bed for two days, but is coming in presently to join me
at tea, so I hope that you--er--you will fulfil the intention with which
you came!" and the speaker smiled at the pretty girl with a sudden
lighting of the sleepy eyes. He was thinking to himself what a
marvellous difference her coming had made in the aspect of the dim,
solemn room. All day long he had roamed about the house and grounds
with the eerie feeling of being alone in an enchanted castle, where a
spell of sleep was laid on the occupants. Wherever the eye lighted,
some rare and costly treasure greeted the sight; the great rooms opened
one into the other, while rare Venetian mirrors reduplicated the
tapestries on the walls and seemed to open out fresh vistas before the
eye. It was a palace among houses, a very storehouse of treasures, but
the want of life chilled the blood in the young man's veins. Not a
human soul to be seen but the silent-footed servant with his foreign
tongue, and the crippled master, dead already to all that makes life
worth living! All day long he had been alone, struggling with a
depression which seemed to close more and more heavily around him; but
here, at last, was a creature like himself, young, radiant, full of
life, with the glow of health and happiness on her rosy cheek. His
glance was so undisguisedly friendly that Nan responded to it with a
smile, and seated herself forthwith on her accustomed chair. Shyness
not being a complaint by which she was troubled, she saw no reason for