he
cornet one at the back of the main building, which looked out over the
deserted garden--that had been Richard's mother's. She recalled how he
had stolen into it on that summer's day after his return, and had flung
open the shutters. They were open now, for their locks were off. The
prie-dieu was gone, and the dresser. But the high bed was there, stripped
of its poppy counterpane and white curtains; and the steps by which she
had entered it.

And next they went into the great square room that had been Lionel
Carvel's, and there, too, was the roomy bed on which the old gentleman
had lain with the gout, while Richard read to him from the Spectator. One
side of it looked out on the trees in Freshwater Lane; and the other
across the roof of the low house opposite to where the sun danced on the
blue and white waters of the Chesapeake.

"Honey," said Virginia, as they stood in the deep recess of the window,
"wouldn't it be nice if we could live here always, away from the world?
Just we two! But you would never be content to do that," she said,
smiling reproachfully. "You are the kind of man who must be in the midst
of things. In a little while you will have far more besides me to think
about."

He was quick to catch the note of sadness in her voice. And he drew her
to him.

"We all have our duty to perform in the world, dear," he answered. "It
cannot be all pleasure."

"You--you Puritan!" she cried. "To think that I should have married a
Puritan! What would my great-great-great-great-grandfather say, who was
such a stanch Royalist? Why, I think I can see him frowning at me now,
from the door, in his blue velvet goat and silverlaced waistcoat."

"He was well punished," retorted Stephen, "his own grandson was a Whig,
and seems to have married a woman of spirit."

"She had spirit," said Virginia. "I am sure that she did not allow my
great-grandfather to kiss her--unless she wanted to."

And she looked up at him, half smiling, half pouting; altogether
bewitching.

"From what I hear of him, he was something of a man," said Stephen.
"Perhaps he did it anyway."

"I am glad that Marlborough Street isn't a crowded thoroughfare," said
Virginia.

When they had seen the dining room, with its carved mantel and silver
door-knobs, and the ballroom in the wing, they came out, and Stephen
locked the door again. They walked around the house, and stood looking
down the terraces,--once stately, but crumbled now,--where Dorothy h