lofty and spacious hall,
where the foot rang on the bare, polished boards, and ten generations of
Fairfaxes, successive dwellers in the grand old house, looked down from
the walls. It was not lighted except by the sunset, which filled it with
a warm and solemn glow.

Numerous servants appeared, amongst them a plump functionary in blue
satinette and a towering cap, who curtseyed to Elizabeth and spoke some
words of real welcome: "I'm right glad to see you back, Miss Fairfax;
these arms were the first that held you." Bessie's impulse was to fall
on the neck of this kindly personage with kisses and tears, but her
grandfather's cool tone intervening maintained her reserve:

"Your young mistress will be pleased to go to her room, Macky. Your
reminiscences will keep till to-morrow."

Macky, instantly obedient, begged Miss Fairfax to "come this way," and
conducted her through a double-leaved door that stood open to the inner
hall, carpeted with crimson pile, like the wide shallow stairs that went
up to the gallery surrounding the greater hall. On this gallery opened
many doors of chambers long silent and deserted.

"The master ordered you the white suite," announced Macky, ushering
Elizabeth into the room so called. "It has pretty prospects, and the
rooms are not such wildernesses as the other state-apartments. The
eldest unmarried lady of the family always occupied the white suite."

A narrow ante-room, a sitting-room, a bed-room, and off it a
sleeping-closet for her maid,--this was the private lodging accorded to
the new daughter of the house. Bessie gazed about, taking in a general
impression of faded, delicate richness, of white and gold and sparse
color, in elegant, antiquated taste, like a boudoir in an old Norman
chateau that she had visited.

"Mrs. Betts was so thoughtful as to come on by an earlier train to get
unpacked and warn us to be prepared," Macky observed in a respectful
explanatory tone; and then she went on to offer her good wishes to the
young lady she had nursed, in the manner of an old and trusted dependant
of the family. "It is fine weather and a fine time of year, and we hope
and pray all of us, Miss Fairfax, as this will be a blessed
bringing-home for you and our dear master. Most of us was here servants
when Mr. Geoffry, your father, went south. A cheerful, pleasant
gentleman he was, and your mamma as pleasant a lady. And here is Mrs.
Betts to wait on you."

Bessie thanked the old woman, and