Beside her, her maid sat shivering and stifling yawn after yawn and thinking of dinner and creature comforts, and of Dunn, the footman, whom she did ardently admire.
The big red brick house among its naked trees seemed sad and deserted as the brougham flashed into the drive and stopped, the horses stamping and pawing the frozen gravel.

Geraldine had never before been away from home so long, and now as she descended from the carriage and looked vaguely about her it seemed as though she had, somehow, become very, very young again--that it was her child-self that entered under the porte-cochere after the prescribed drive that always ended outdoor exercise in the early winter evenings; and she half expected to see old Howker in the hall, and Margaret trotting up to undo her furs and leggings--half expected to hear Kathleen's gay greeting, to see her on the stairs, so young, so sweetly radiant, her arms outstretched in welcome to her children who had been away scarcely a full hour.
"I'd like to have a fire in my bedroom and in the upper library," she said to Hilda, who had smilingly opened the door for her.

"I'll dine in the upper library, too.

When Mr.Mallett arrives, you need not come up to announce him.

Ask him to find me in the library." To Mrs.Farren she said: "Nobody need sit up.