had gone up to Oxford from her father's house with her
image in his heart. She, too, was thinking of those days of fresh
spring-time. "He is not much changed," she thought, "save that he looks
tired and discouraged; then his eyes were bright, looking, as they were,
into a world where everything seemed easy and full of pleasure to him."

"We are both thinking of the old days," she said to him, as she pulled a
rose from her belt, and nervously crumpled its petals between her
fingers. "Ah, how I wept when you ceased writing to me!"

"I do not imagine that you ever wept any bitter tears on my account,"
remonstrated Geoffrey. "I was a mere boy then; and a girl of eighteen
can hold her own with a man of any age, while a boy of eighteen can no
more look after himself in a love affair than a--"

"Boy of any other age," interrupted Mrs. Carey. "Ah, Geoffrey, I did
weep then more than you can imagine. But I have always remembered you as
a dear boy, who loved me a little and forgot me when he was away. Men
are deceivers ever, and I fancy that I am not the last woman whom you
have loved a little and forgotten since. But the others are going in to
dinner. It is a motley party, is it not? Just fancy Richard Lincoln's
being here, and the old Duke, and John Dacre, too. Why is he here? Do
you know?"

"I haven't seen him since I first went to Paris," answered Geoffrey, as
he offered her his arm.

The pair walked in to dinner in their proper place in the procession.

"What a beautiful old room this is!" exclaimed Mrs. Carey as they
entered the dining-hall. "Jawkins does this sort of thing so well! How
perfectly he reproduces the courtly state of the last century when he
re-establishes a house!"

Geoffrey had not been in this room since the day when he had been called
from Oxford by a telegram announcing his father's sudden death. Then the
room had been dark and there was a hush over it, and the servants had
moved stealthily over the oaken floor, and he had sat by the window
listening to the slow words of the family lawyer, which told him that he
was the heir of a ruined estate.

He winced as he seated himself by Mrs. Carey's side, a guest at the
great table at which his forebears had broken bread as almost princely
hosts. The party had entered, and sat down in silence, and, after
unfolding their napkins, looked rather gloomily at each other for a
while, but Mr. Jawkins soon broke into an easy conversational canter,
and the rest