Perfumed breaths of flowers and pot-pourri ascended from the hall.

The pictures along the walls as she passed were those same Caroline and early Georgian beauties that had so flashingly suggested her own future rule in this domain on the day when Aldous proposed to her.
She felt suddenly very shrinking and lonely as she went downstairs.

The ticking of a large clock somewhere--the short, screaming note of Miss Raeburn's parrot in one of the ground-floor rooms--these sounds and the beating of her own heart seemed to have the vast house to themselves.
No!--that was a door opening--Aldous coming to fetch her.

She drew a childish breath of comfort.
He sprang up the stairs, two or three steps at a time, as he saw her coming.
"Are you rested--were they good to you?
Oh! my precious one!--how pale you are still! Will you come and see my--grandfather now?
He is quite ready." She let him lead her in.

Lord Maxwell was standing by his writing-table, leaning over the petition which was open before him--one hand upon it.
At sight of her he lifted his white head.