was young--just twenty-two; she was--she knew it--agreeable to look
upon; she had as much money as any reasonable woman need want; she had
already seen a great deal of the world outside England; and she had
fallen headlong in love with this charming old house, and had now, in
spite of various difficulties, managed to possess herself of it, and
plant her life in it. Full of ghosts it might be; but _she_ was its
living mistress henceforth; nor was it either ridiculous or snobbish
that she should love it and exult in it--quite the contrary. And she
paused on the slippery stairs, to admire the old panelled hall below,
the play of wintry sunlight on the oaken surfaces she herself had
rescued from desecrating paint, and the effect of some old Persian rugs,
which had only arrived from London the night before, on the dark
polished boards. For Diana, there were two joys connected with the old
house: the joy of entering in, a stranger and conqueror, on its guarded
and matured beauty, and the joy of adding to that beauty by a deft
modernness. Very deft, and tender, and skilful it must be. But no one
could say that time-worn Persian rugs, with their iridescent blue and
greens and rose reds--or old Italian damask and cut-velvet from Genoa,
or Florence, or Venice--were out of harmony with the charming Jacobean
rooms. It was the horrible furniture of the Vavasours, the ancestral
possessors of the place, which had been an offence and a disfigurement.
In moving it out and replacing it, Diana felt that she had become the
spiritual child of the old house, in spite of her alien blood. There is
a kinship not of the flesh; and it thrilled all through her.

But just as her pause of daily homage to the place in which she found
herself was over, and she was about to run down the remaining stairs to
the dining-room, a new thought delayed her for a moment by the staircase
window--the thought of a lady who would no doubt be waiting for her at
the breakfast-table.

Mrs. Colwood, Miss Mallory's new chaperon and companion, had arrived the
night before, on Christmas Eve. She had appeared just in time for
dinner, and the two ladies had spent the evening together. Diana's first
impressions had been pleasant--yes, certainly, pleasant; though Mrs.
Colwood had been shy, and Diana still more so. There could be no
question but that Mrs. Colwood was refined, intelligent, and attractive.
Her gentle, almost childish looks appealed for her. So did her deep
bl