y, Gerty dear, since poor Jack sailed away
from England in the _Ocean Pride_."

Flora Mackenzie bent listlessly over the harp she had been playing as
she spoke, her fingers touching a chord or two that seemed in unison
with her thoughts. The two girls, Gerty Keane and she, who were seldom
separate now, by day or night, sat in Flora's boudoir, which had two
great windows opening on to a balcony and overlooking the grand old
gardens of Grantley Hall, Suffolk. Grant Mackenzie, a sturdy old
one-armed soldier, was the proud owner of the Hall and all the wide,
wooded landscape for miles around. Jack, now far away at sea, was his
heir, and with his sister Flora, the only children the general had. The
fine old soldier had been in possession of the property only about a
dozen years, yet I fear he had inherited something else--namely, the
lordly fashions of his Highland ancestry. That branch of the Clan
Mackenzie to which he belonged was nothing unless proud. So long as it
could hold its head a little higher than its neighbours it was happy,
and when poverty came then death might follow as soon as it pleased.
There was every appearance of unbounded wealth in and around Grantley
Hall. The house was a massive old Elizabethan mansion, half buried in
lofty lime and elm and oak trees, approached by a winding drive, and a
long way back from the main road that leads through this beautiful shire
from north to south.

Everything was large connected with the Hall and estate. There were no
finer trees anywhere in England than those sturdy oaks and elms, no more
stately waving pine trees, and no more shady drooping limes than those
that bordered the broad grass ride which stretched for many a mile
across the estate. On the park-like lawn in front of the house--if this
ancient quaint old pile could be said to have a front--the flower-beds
were as big as suburban gardens, the statuary, the fountains, and even
the gray and moss-grown dial-stone were gigantic; and nowhere else in
all this vast and wealthy county were such stately herons seen as those
that sailed around Grantley and built in its trees. The entrance-hall
was spacious and noble, though the porch was comparatively small; but
if divested of its banners and curtains and emptied of its antique
furniture, its wealth-laden tables, on which jewelled arms and curios
from every land under the sun seemed to have been laid out for show,
its oaken chests, its sideboards, its organ and many an