the sunlight streamed, showing the old velvet carpet in the
hall below, and the carved heavy walnut chairs and tables, and the old
engravings in their frames of oak and walnut mosaic. The visitors
peeped into the old library, odorous of unopened books, and with great
curtains of green rep shutting out the light, and into the music room
behind it, cold even on this warm day, with a muffled grand piano drawn
free of the walls, and near it two piano-stools, upholstered in
blue-fringed rep, to match the curtains and chairs. They went across
the hall to the long, dim drawing room, where there was another velvet
carpet, dulled to a red pink by time, and muffled pompous sofas and
chairs, and great mirrors, and "sets" of candlesticks and vases on the
mantels and what-nots. The windows were shuttered here, the air
lifeless. Barry, in George Carew's interest, felt bound to say that
"they would clear all this up, you know; a lot of this stuff could be
stored."

"Oh, why store it? It's perfectly good," the lady answered absently.

Presently they went out to the more cheerful dining-room, which ran
straight across the house, and was low-ceiled, with pleasant
square-paned windows on two sides.

"This was the old house," explained Barry; "they added on the front
part. You could do a lot with this room."

"Do you still smell spice, and apples, and cider here?" said Mrs.
Burgoyne, turning from an investigation of the china-closet, with a
radiant face. A moment later she caught her breath suddenly, and walked
across the room to stand, resting her hands on a chair back, before a
large portrait that hung above the fireplace. She stood so, gazing at
the picture--the portrait of a woman--for a full minute, and when she
turned again to Barry, her eyes were bright with tears.

"That's Mrs. Holly," said she. "Emily said that picture was here." And
turning back to the canvas, she added under her breath, "You darling!"

"Did you know her?" Barry asked, surprised.

"Did I know her!" Mrs. Burgoyne echoed softly, without turning. "Yes, I
knew her," she added, almost musingly. And then suddenly she said,
"Come, let's look upstairs," and led the way by the twisted sunny back
stairway, which had a window on every landing and Crimson Rambler roses
pressing against every window. They looked into several bedrooms, all
dusty, close, sunshiny. In the largest of these, a big front corner
room, carpeted in dark red, with a black marble fireplace and a