"It looks as if he meant to cut loose from all of us.

While I'm sorry, I can't say that he's wrong or that it's not a proper feeling.

And now I think we'll let the subject drop." The next afternoon was bright and mild, and soon after Mrs.Foster and her party arrived Challoner offered to show them his winter shrubbery.
"I have lately planted a number of new specimens which you and Margaret have not seen," he said; "and you may be interested to learn what effects can be got by a judicious mingling of bushes remarkable for the beauty of their berries and branch-coloring among the stereotyped evergreens." They went out and Millicent thought the front of the old house with its mullioned windows, its heavy, pillared coping, and its angular chimney stacks, made a picturesque background for the smooth-clipped yew hedges and broad sweep of lawn.

Behind it a wood of tall beeches raised their naked boughs in pale, intricate tracery against the soft blue sky.

The shrubs proved worth inspection, for some were rich with berries of hues that varied from crimson to lilac, and the massed twigs of others formed blotches of strong coloring.