e he did not appreciate such things as there are here.'

'The castle has been shut up, you mean?'

'O yes, for many years. But it will not be so again. We are going to
have the pictures cleaned, and the frames mended, and the old pieces of
furniture put in their proper places. It will be very nice then. Did you
see those in the east closet?'

'I have only seen those in the gallery.'

'I will just show you the way to the others, if you would like to see
them?'

They ascended to the room designated the east closet. The paintings
here, mostly of smaller size, were in a better condition, owing to the
fact that they were hung on an inner wall, and had hence been kept free
from damp. Somerset inquired the names and histories of one or two.

'I really don't quite know,' Miss De Stancy replied after some thought.
'But Paula knows, I am sure. I don't study them much--I don't see the
use of it.' She swung her sunshade, so that it fell open, and turned it
up till it fell shut. 'I have never been able to give much attention to
ancestors,' she added, with her eyes on the parasol.

'These ARE your ancestors?' he asked, for her position and tone were
matters which perplexed him. In spite of the family likeness and other
details he could scarcely believe this frank and communicative country
maiden to be the modern representative of the De Stancys.

'O yes, they certainly are,' she said, laughing. 'People say I am like
them: I don't know if I am--well, yes, I know I am: I can see that, of
course, any day. But they have gone from my family, and perhaps it
is just as well that they should have gone.... They are useless,' she
added, with serene conclusiveness.

'Ah! they have gone, have they?'

'Yes, castle and furniture went together: it was long ago--long before
I was born. It doesn't seem to me as if the place ever belonged to a
relative of mine.'

Somerset corrected his smiling manner to one of solicitude.

'But you live here, Miss De Stancy?'

'Yes--a great deal now; though sometimes I go home to sleep.'

'This is home to you, and not home?'

'I live here with Paula--my friend: I have not been here long, neither
has she. For the first six months after her father's death she did not
come here at all.'

They walked on, gazing at the walls, till the young man said: 'I fear
I may be making some mistake: but I am sure you will pardon my
inquisitiveness this once. WHO is Paula?'

'Ah, you don't know! Of course you don't