ach herself from certain recollections of
Nigel--of his opinions of her family--of his determination not to allow
it to enter as a factor in either his life or hers. And Betty had come
to Stornham--Betty whom he had detested as a child--and in the course of
two days, she had seemed to become a new part of the atmosphere, and to
make the dead despair of the place begin to stir with life. What other
thing than this was happening as she spoke of making such rooms as the
Rosebud Boudoir "look as they ought to look," and said the words not
as if they were part of a fantastic vision, but as if they expressed a
perfectly possible thing?

Betty saw the doubt in her eyes, and in a measure, guessed at its
meaning. The time to pause for argument had, however not arrived. There
was too much to be investigated, too much to be seen. She swept her on
her way. They wandered on through some forty rooms, more or less; they
opened doors and closed them; they unbarred shutters and let the sun
stream in on dust and dampness and cobwebs. The comprehension of the
situation which Betty gained was as valuable as it was enlightening.

The descent into the lower part of the house was a new experience. Betty
had not before seen huge, flagged kitchens, vaulted servants' halls,
stone passages, butteries and dairies. The substantial masonry of the
walls and arched ceilings, the stone stairway, and the seemingly
endless offices, were interestingly remote in idea from such domestic
modernities as chance views of up-to-date American household workings
had provided her.

In the huge kitchen itself, an elderly woman, rolling pastry, paused to
curtsy to them, with stolid curiosity in her heavy-featured face. In her
character as "single-handed" cook, Mrs. Noakes had sent up uninviting
meals to Lady Anstruthers for several years, but she had not seen her
ladyship below stairs before. And this was the unexpected arrival--the
young lady there had been "talk of" from the moment of her appearance.
Mrs. Noakes admitted with the grudgingness of a person of uncheerful
temperament, that looks like that always would make talk. A certain
degree of vague mental illumination led her to agree with Robert, the
footman, that the stranger's effectiveness was, perhaps, also, not
altogether a matter of good looks, and certainly it was not an affair
of clothes. Her brightish blue dress, of rough cloth, was nothing
particular, notwithstanding the fit of it. There was "somethi