not pretending.

"Of course. There's always an Emma, when Old Masters are on show. Romney
painted her forty or fifty times. We've got one ourselves--a sketch my
grandfather bought. If you'll come into the hall I'll show it you."

She followed obediently and, in a rather dark corner of the hall, Lord
Buntingford pointed out an unfinished sketch of Lady Hamilton--one of the
many Bacchante variants--the brown head bent a little under the ivy
leaves in the hair, the glorious laughing eyes challenging the spectator.

"Is she like that?" asked Mrs. Friend, wondering.

"Who?--my ward?" laughed Lord Buntingford. "Well, you'll see."

He walked away, and Mrs. Friend stayed a few minutes more in front of the
picture--thinking--and with half an ear listening for the sound of a
motor. She was full of tremors and depression. "I was a fool to come--a
fool to accept!" she thought. The astonishing force of the sketch--of the
creature sketched--intimidated her. If Helena Pitstone were really like
that--"How can she ever put up with me? She'll just despise me. It will
be only natural. And then if things go wrong, Lord Buntingford will find
out I'm no good--and I shall have to go!"

She gave a long sigh, lifting her eyes a little--against her will--to the
reflection of herself in an old mirror hanging beside the Romney. What a
poor little insignificant figure--beside the other! No, she had no
confidence in herself--none at all--she never had had. The people she had
lived with had indeed generally been fond of her. It was because she made
herself useful to them. Old Mrs. Browne had professed affection for
her,--till she gave notice. She turned with a shiver from the
recollection of an odious scene.

She went bade to the drawing-room and thence to the library, looking
wistfully, as she passed through it, at the pleasant hall, with its old
furniture, and its mellowed comfort. She would like to find a home here,
if only they would put up with her. For she was very homeless.

As compared with the drawing-room, the library had been evidently lived
in. Its books and shabby chairs seemed to welcome her, and the old
tapestry delighted her. She stood some minutes before it in a quiet
pleasure, dreaming herself into the forest, and discovering an old castle
in its depths. Then she noticed a portrait of an old man, labelled as by
"Frank Holl, R. A.," hanging over the mantelpiece. She supposed it was
the grandfather who had collected the books.