ions,
and Hugh had been in London. She hoped that Miss Mallory had enjoyed her
stay at Tallyn. It certainly seemed to both mother and son that the
ingenuous young face colored a little as its owner replied--"Thank
you--it was very amusing"--and then added, with a little
hesitation--"Mr. Marsham has been kindly advising me since, about the
gardens--and the Vavasours. _They_ were to keep up the gardens, you
know--and now they practically leave it to me--which isn't fair."

Mrs. Roughsedge secretly wondered whether this statement was meant to
account for the frequent presence of Oliver Marsham at Beechcote. She
had herself met him in the lane riding away from Beechcote no less than
three times during the past fortnight.

"Please come in to tea!" said Diana; "I am just expecting my
cousin--Miss Merton. Mrs. Colwood and I are so excited!--we have never
had a visitor here before. I came out to try and find some snow-drops
for her room. There is really nothing in the greenhouses--and I can't
make the house look nice."

Certainly as they entered and passed through the panelled hall to the
drawing-room Hugh Roughsedge saw no need for apology. Amid the warm
dimness of the house he was aware of a few starry flowers, a few
gleaming and beautiful stuffs, the white and black of an engraving, or
the blurred golds and reds of an old Italian picture, humble school-work
perhaps, collected at small cost by Diana's father, yet still breathing
the magic of the Enchanted Land. The house was refined, pleading,
eager--like its mistress. It made no display--but it admitted no
vulgarity. "These things are not here for mere decoration's sake," it
seemed to say. "Dear kind hands have touched them; dear silent voices
have spoken of them. Love them a little, you also!--and be at home."

Not that Hugh Roughsedge made any such conscious analysis of his
impressions. Yet the house appealed to him strangely. He thought Miss
Mallory's taste marvellous; and it is one of the superiorities in women
to which men submit most readily.

The drawing-room had especially a festive air. Mrs. Colwood was keeping
tea-cakes hot, and building up a blazing fire with logs of beech-wood.
When she had seated her guests, Diana put the snow-drops she had
gathered into an empty vase, and looked round her happily, as though now
she had put the last touch to all her preparations. She talked readily
of her cousin's coming to Mrs. Roughsedge; and she inquired minutely of
Hug