Love them a little, you also!--and be at home." Not that Hugh Roughsedge made any such conscious analysis of his impressions.

Yet the house appealed to him strangely.

He thought Miss Mallory's taste marvellous; and it is one of the superiorities in women to which men submit most readily.
The drawing-room had especially a festive air.

Mrs.Colwood was keeping tea-cakes hot, and building up a blazing fire with logs of beech-wood.
When she had seated her guests, Diana put the snow-drops she had gathered into an empty vase, and looked round her happily, as though now she had put the last touch to all her preparations.

She talked readily of her cousin's coming to Mrs.Roughsedge; and she inquired minutely of Hugh when the next meet was to be, that she might take her guest to see it.
"Fanny will be just as new to it all as I!" she said.