the round pillars which carried out the type of
architecture which had been the fashion at the time Doryford was built;
and he was gazing at her with what seemed to her a rather odd expression
on his dark face. Was he going to tell her of his hopes or intention with
regard to Mrs. Crofton?

Betty felt, for the first time that day, intensely shy. She walked away,
towards the big half-moon window opposite the front door. A wide grass
gallop, bordered with splendid old trees, stretched out as if
illimitable, and she began gazing down it with unseeing eyes.

He came quickly across the hall, and stood by her. Then he said slowly,
"I'm wondering, wondering, wondering if I shall ever be in this house
again!"

"You must think it well over," she began.

But he cut her short. "It depends on _you_ whether Doryford becomes my
home or not."

"On me?" she repeated, troubled. "Don't trust to my taste as much as
that, Godfrey."

"But you do like it?" he asked insistently.

"Of course I like it. If it comes to that, I don't know that I've ever
been in so beautiful and perfect a house. And then, well perhaps because
we've everything so shabby at Old Place, I do like to see everything in
such apple-pie order!"

A little disappointed, he went on, "I fear it isn't your ideal house,
Betty? Not your house of dreams?"

And then, all at once, she knew that she couldn't answer him, for tears
had welled up in her eyes, and choked her speech.

Her house of dreams? Betty Tosswill's house of dreams had vanished, she
thought, for ever, so very long ago. Betty's house of dreams had been
quite a small house--but such a cosy, happy place, full of the Godfrey
of long ago, and of good, delicious dream children....

She turned her head away.

"Well," he exclaimed, "that's that! We won't think about this house
again. We'll go and look at another place to-morrow."

His matter-of-fact, rather cross, tone made her pull herself together.
What a baby he was after all!

"Don't be absurd, Godfrey. I don't believe if we were to look England
through, that I should see a house I thought more delightful than this
house. I'm a little overawed by it, that's all! You see I've never dwelt
in marble halls--"

"Oh, one gets used to that!"

"Yes, I expect one does."

"Whether I buy this place depends on you," he said obstinately.

"Well, then, if I'm to decide, I say buy it!" She turned and smiled at
him a little tremulously, keeping her head well do