the high
back chairs and the massive sideboards bade you respect their age.

The drawing-room was quite as awe-inspiring, for the blinds were nearly
always down, and it had a musty unused scent telling you that its
grandeur was not for daily use. The library was gloomier still. Its
windows were of stained glass; books of the dingiest hue surrounded
you; they lined the walls; and the furniture and carpet matched them in
tone. Ghostly busts on pedestals, scientific machines, and a huge
geographical and astronomical globe added to its gloom. The sun had a
way of only hastily shining in when he could not help himself, and he
left it till the last moment just before he went to bed. He was not
fond of that room, and there was no one in the house that was.

Then there was the morning room, and this was where old Mrs. Egerton
spent most of her day. She was a tall severe old lady with no sense of
humour and a very strong will. She spent an hour after breakfast with
her cook, for housekeeping was her hobby; then she sat at her table
writing letters and doing her accounts till luncheon, after which she
always went for a drive. In the evening after dinner she read the
paper or some solid book, knitted, and retired early to bed. Her
daughter, Miss Anna Egerton, was very like her, only she was seldom
seen indoors. She was full of good works, and was never idle, for she
had more business than she could possibly get through, and her days
were so crowded that meals seemed quite an effort. The man of the
house, Mrs. Egerton's son, was also always out, and when at home spent
his leisure moments in his smoking-room. London claimed most of his
time, for he was in a government office, and went to and fro by train,
thinking nothing of the hours spent twice a day in a railway carriage.

'A very dull house indeed,' a lady visitor thought at the end of her
first day there; and yet, in spite of its quietness, there were just a
few indications of another element that puzzled her.

Once she heard a patter of childish feet along the corridor past her
door, but that was very early in the morning before she was properly
awake, so she thought she must be dreaming. Then, in a secluded path
in the shrubberies, she came across a child's glove and a toy
watering-can, and as she was going downstairs to dinner, and was
passing a broad staircase window, she noticed upon its broad ledge a
little bunch of daisies. She looked at them and took t