little that night. Perhaps
the long talk about her father's early days had taken too great a hold
of her. At any rate, she tossed about very restlessly in her luxurious
quarters, and when, for brief intervals, she slept, it was only to dream
of her father taking leave of his Scottish home, and always he bore that
flint-like face, that look of strong endurance and repressed passion
which Elspeth had described, and which, in times of trouble and
injustice, Erica had learned to know so well.

CHAPTER XXV. Lady Caroline's Dinner

The blank of amaze of your haughty gaze,
The cold surprise of patrician eyes. Lewis Morris

But the paucity of Christians is astonishing, considering
the number of them. Leigh Hunt.

The irritation, or, at any rate, the novelty of the luxury in the
Fane-Smith's household wore off after Erica had spent a few days at
Greyshot. She became accustomed to the great rooms, and being artistic
by nature and the reverse by education, she began very much to enjoy the
pictures, the charming variety of foreign treasures, and particularly
all the lovely things of Indian workmanship with which the drawing room
was crowded. The long, formal meals she learned to endure. The absurdly
large retinue of servants ceased to oppress her; she used to amuse
herself by speculating as to the political views of the men-servants!
while the luxury of a daily drive with her aunt she very much
appreciated.

But, though the mere externals were soon familiar enough, she found that
every day increased the difficulty she felt in becoming accustomed to
the atmosphere of this family. She had lived all her life with people
who were overwhelmed with work, and in a home where recreation was only
the rare concession to actual health. Here recreation seemed to be the
business of life, while work for the public was merely tacked on as a
sort of ornamental fringe.

Mr. Fane-Smith had, indeed, a few committee meetings to attend; Mrs.
Fane-Smith visited her district once a fortnight, and distributed
tracts, and kind words, and soup tickets, and blanket tickets, besides
the most lavish gifts from her own purse. Rose, to please her mother,
taught a class of little girls on Sunday afternoon that is to say, she
did NOT teach them, but she sat in a chair and heard them say collects,
and enforced orderly behavior upon them, and read them a good little
story book. But these were merely rather tiresome duties which came