ad the least
look of home comfort or home privacy. As to home elegance, or luxury,
the look of such a room is enough to put it out of one's head that
there can be such things in the world. The ugly ingrain carpet, the
ungraceful frame of the small glass in the pier, the abominable
portraits on the walls, the disagreeable paper with which they were
hung, the hideous lamps on the mantelpiece;--wherever the eye looked,
it came back with uneasy discomfort. Philip's eye came back to the
fire; and _that_ was not pleasant to see; for the fireplace was not
properly cared for, the coals were lifeless, and evidently more
economical than useful. Philip looked very out of place in these
surroundings. No one could for a moment have supposed him to be living
among them. His thoroughly well-dressed figure, the look of easy
refinement in his face, the air of one who is his own master, so
inimitable by one whose circumstances master him; all said plainly that
Mr. Dillwyn was here only on account of some one else. It could be no
home of his.

As little did it seem fitted to be the home of the lady who presently
entered. A tall, elegant, dignified woman; in the simplest of dresses,
indeed, which probably bespoke scantiness of means, but which could not
at all disguise or injure the impression of high breeding and
refinement of manners which her appearance immediately produced. She
was a little older than her visitor, yet not much; a woman in the prime
of life she would have been, had not life gone hard with her; and she
had been very handsome, though the regular features were shadowed with
sadness, and the eyes had wept too many tears not to have suffered loss
of their original brightness. She had the slow, quiet manner of one
whose life is played out; whom the joys and sorrows of the world have
both swept over, like great waves, and receding, have left the world a
barren strand for her; where the tide is never to rise again. She was a
sad-eyed woman, who had accepted her sadness, and could be quietly
cheerful on the surface of it. Always, at least, as far as good
breeding demanded. She welcomed Mr. Dilhvyn with a smile and evident
genuine pleasure.

"How do I find you?" he said, sitting down.

"Quite well. Where have you been all summer? I need not ask how _you_
are."

"Useless things always thrive," he said. "I have been wandering about
among the mountains and lakes in the northern part of Maine."

"That is very wild, isn't it?"