Captain Wybrow, with an easy smile.

'Not when there's a traitor within the walls in the shape of a soft
heart. And that there will be, if Beatrice has her mother's tenderness as
well as her mother's beauty.'

'What do you think, Sir Christopher,' said Lady Cheverel, who seemed to
wince a little under her husband's reminiscences, 'of hanging Guercino's
"Sibyl" over that door when we put up the pictures? It is rather lost in
my sitting-room.'

'Very good, my love,' answered Sir Christopher, in a tone of
punctiliously polite affection; 'if you like to part with the ornament
from your own room, it will show admirably here. Our portraits, by Sir
Joshua, will hang opposite the window, and the "Transfiguration" at that
end. You see, Anthony, I am leaving no good places on the walls for you
and your wife. We shall turn you with your faces to the wall in the
gallery, and you may take your revenge on us by-and-by.'

While this conversation was going on, Mr. Gilfil turned to Caterina and
said,--'I like the view from this window better than any other in the
house.'

She made no answer, and he saw that her eyes were filling with tears; so
he added, 'Suppose we walk out a little; Sir Christopher and my lady seem
to be occupied.'

Caterina complied silently, and they turned down one of the gravel walks
that led, after many windings under tall trees and among grassy openings,
to a large enclosed flower-garden. Their walk was perfectly silent, for
Maynard Gilfil knew that Caterina's thoughts were not with him, and she
had been long used to make him endure the weight of those moods which she
carefully hid from others. They reached the flower-garden, and turned
mechanically in at the gate that opened, through a high thick hedge, on
an expanse of brilliant colour, which, after the green shades they had
passed through, startled the eye like flames. The effect was assisted by
an undulation of the ground, which gradually descended from the
entrance-gate, and then rose again towards the opposite end, crowned by
an orangery. The flowers were glowing with their evening splendours;
verbenas and heliotropes were sending up their finest incense. It seemed
a gala where all was happiness and brilliancy, and misery could find no
sympathy. This was the effect it had on Caterina. As she wound among the
beds of gold and blue and pink, where the flowers seemed to be looking at
her with wondering elf-like eyes, knowing nothing of sorrow, the feelin