aper of branching trees and parrots and
red-robed Chinamen, in the taste of the morning room downstairs, a
carved four-post bed, a grate adorned with purplish Dutch tiles, an
array of family miniatures over the mantelpiece, and on a neighbouring
wall a rack of old swords and rapiers. The needlework hangings of the
bed were full of holes; the seats of the Chippendale chairs were frayed
or tattered. But, none the less, the inalienable character and dignity
of his sleeping-room were a bitter satisfaction to Richard Boyce, even
in his sickness. After all said and done, he was king here in his
father's and grandfather's place; ruling where they ruled, and--whether
they would or no--dying where they died, with the same family faces to
bear him witness from the walls, and the same vault awaiting him.

When his daughter entered, he turned his head, and his eyes, deep and
black still as ever, but sunk in a yellow relic of a face, showed a
certain agitation. She was disagreeably aware that his thoughts were
much occupied with her; that he was full of grievance towards her, and
would probably before long bring the pathos of his situation as well as
the weight of his dying authority to bear upon her, for purposes she
already suspected with alarm.

"Are you a little easier, papa?" she said, as she came up to him.

"I should think as a nurse you ought to know better, my dear, than to
ask," he said testily. "When a person is in my condition, enquiries of
that sort are a mockery!"

"But one may be in less or more pain," she said gently. "I hoped Dr.
Clarke's treatment yesterday might have given you some relief."

He did not vouchsafe an answer. She took some work and sat down by him.
Mrs. Boyce, who had been tidying a table of food and medicine, came and
asked him if he would be wheeled into another room across the gallery,
which had been arranged as a sitting-room. He shook his head irritably.

"I am not fit for it. Can't you see? And I want to speak to Marcella."

Mrs. Boyce went away. Marcella waited, not without a tremor. She was
sitting in the sun, her head bent over the muslin strings she was
hemming for her nurse's bonnet. The window was wide open; outside, the
leaves under a warm breeze were gently drifting down into the Cedar
Garden, amid a tangled mass of flowers, mostly yellow or purple. To one
side rose the dark layers of the cedars; to the other, the grey front
of the library wing.

Mr. Boyce looked at her with the