than that Mrs. Ormonde returned from her breathing of
the sea air. At the door she was told of Egremont's arrival, and with a
look of pleased expectancy she went at once to the library.

Egremont rose from the fireside, and advanced with the quiet confidence
with which one greets only the dearest friends.

'So the sunshine has brought you,' she said, holding his hand for a
moment. 'We had a terrible storm in the night, and the morning is very
sweet after it. Had you arrived a very little sooner, you would have
been in time to drive with me.'

She was one of those women who have no need to soften their voice when
they would express kindness. Her clear and firm, yet sweet, tones
uttered with perfection a nature very richly and tenderly endowed.
During the past five years she had aged in appearance; the grief which
she would not expose had drawn its lines upon her features, and
something too of imperfect health was visible there. But her gaze was
the same as ever, large, benevolent, intellectual. In her presence
Egremont always felt a well-being, a peace of mind, which gave to his
own look its pleasantest quality. Of friends she was still, and would
ever be, the dearest to him. The thought of her approval was always
active with him when he made plans for fruitful work; he could not have
come before her with a consciousness of ignoble fault weighing upon his
mind.

She passed upstairs, and he followed more slowly. Behind the first
landing was a small conservatory; and there, amid evergreens, sat two
children whose appearance would have surprised a chance visitor knowing
nothing of the house and its mistress. They obviously came from some
very poor working-class home; their clothing was of the plainest
possible, and, save that they were very clean and in perfect order,
they might have been sitting on a doorstep in a London back street.
Mrs. Ormonde had thrown a kind word to them in hurrying by. At the
sight of Egremont they hushed their renewed talk and turned shamefaced
looks to the ground. He went on to the drawing-room, where there was
the same comfort and elegance as in the library. Almost immediately
Mrs. Ormonde joined him.

'So you want news!' she said, with her own smile, always a little sad,
always mingling tenderness with reserve on the firm lips. 'Really, I
told you everything essential in my letter. Annabel is in admirable
health, both of body and mind. She is deep in Virgil and Dante--what
more could you