e along
the way in silence, Faith's figure, wrapped up to the top of her head,
cutting into the sky behind them like a sugar-loaf. Such gates as
crossed the roads had been left open by the forethought of the coachman,
and, passing the lodge, they proceeded about half-a-mile along a private
drive, then ascended a rise, and came in view of the front of the
mansion, punctured with windows that were now mostly lighted up.

'What is that?' said Faith, catching a glimpse of something that the
carriage-lamp showed on the face of one wall as they passed, a marble bas-
relief of some battle-piece, built into the stonework.

'That's the scene of the death of one of the squire's forefathers--Colonel
Sir Martin Jones, who was killed at the moment of victory in the battle
of Salamanca--but I haven't been here long enough to know the rights of
it. When I am in one of my meditations, as I wait here with the carriage
sometimes, I think how many more get killed at the moment of victory than
at the moment of defeat. This is the entrance for you, sir.' And he
turned the corner and pulled up before a side door.

They alighted and went in, Christopher shouldering Faith's harp, and she
marching modestly behind, with curly-eared music-books under her arm.
They were shown into the house-steward's room, and ushered thence along a
badly-lit passage and past a door within which a hum and laughter were
audible. The door next to this was then opened for them, and they
entered.

* * * * *

Scarcely had Faith, or Christopher either, ever beheld a more shining
scene than was presented by the saloon in which they now found
themselves. Coming direct from the gloomy park, and led to the room by
that back passage from the servants' quarter, the light from the
chandelier and branches against the walls, striking on gilding at all
points, quite dazzled their sight for a minute or two; it caused Faith to
move forward with her eyes on the floor, and filled Christopher with an
impulse to turn back again into some dusky corner where every thread of
his not over-new dress suit--rather moth-eaten through lack of feasts for
airing it--could be counted less easily.

He was soon seated before a grand piano, and Faith sat down under the
shadow of her harp, both being arranged on a dais within an alcove at one
end of the room. A screen of ivy and holly had been constructed across
the front of this recess for the games of the children on Christmas Eve,
and