The service upon the table was shabby and the dinner was not a bounteous meal.

Lady Anstruthers in her girlish, gauzy dress and looking too small for her big, high-backed chair tried to talk rapidly, and every few minutes forgot herself and sank into silence, with her eyes unconsciously fixed upon her sister's face.

Ughtred watched Betty also, and with a hungry questioning.

The man-servant in the worn livery was not a sufficiently well-trained and experienced domestic to make any effort to keep his eyes from her.

He was young enough to be excited by an innovation so unusual as the presence of a young and beautiful person surrounded by an unmistakable atmosphere of ease and fearlessness.