ke to reply. And her aunt, conscious of having spoken sharply, became
immediately more gentle in manner, and told her certain details about
the arrangements of the house, which it behoved Lesley to know, with
considerable thoughtfulness and kind feeling.

Mr. Brooke usually rang for his coffee about half-past ten, and came
down at half-past eleven. He then had breakfast served to him in the
dining-room, and did not join his sister at luncheon at all. In the
afternoon he walked out, or wrote, or saw friends; dined at six, and
went down to the office of his paper at eight. From the office he did
not usually return until the small hours of the morning; and then, as
Miss Brooke explained, he often sat up writing or reading for an hour or
two longer.

"Why does he work so late?" asked Lesley, innocently. "I should have
thought the day-time was pleasanter."

Miss Brooke gave a short, explosive laugh, fixed a pair of eyeglasses on
the bridge of her nose, and looked at Lesley as if she were a natural
curiosity.

"Have you yet to learn," she said, "that we don't do what is pleasant in
this life, but what we _must_?"

Then she got up and went away from the breakfast-table, leaving Lesley
ashamed and confounded. The girl leaned her elbows upon the white cloth,
and furtively wiped a tear away from her eyes. She found herself in a
new atmosphere, and it did not seem to her a very congenial one. She was
bewildered; it did not appear possible that she could live for a year in
a home of this very peculiar kind. To her uncultivated imagination, Mr.
Brooke and his sister looked to her like barbarians. She did not
understand their ways at all.

She spent the morning in unpacking her things, and arranging them, with
rather a sad heart, in her room. She did not like to go downstairs until
the luncheon-bell rang; and then she found that she was to lunch alone.
Miss Brooke was out; Mr. Brooke was in his study.

The white-capped and severe-visaged middle-aged servant, who was known
as Sarah, came to Lesley after the meal with a message.

"Mr. Brooke says, Miss, that he would like to see you in his study, if
you can spare him a few minutes."

Lesley flushed hotly as she was shown into the smoky, little den. It was
a scene of confusion, such as she had never beheld before. The table was
heaped high with papers: books and maps strewed every chair: even the
floor was littered with bulky tomes and piles of manuscript. At a
knee-hole tabl