So Betty lighted a pile of logs on the open hearth, and put a pair of candles on the table near the fire, and wheeled a tapestried arm-chair beside it, and placed Sir Kenrick’s slippers comfortably in front of the fender--so that in spite of its long disuse the room had a homelike aspect when he came to it after his homely dinner. By this dim light the room looked lovely--all its shabbiness hidden--all its beauties of form and colour intensified--the figures in the fine old tapestry standing out in life-like roundness. Theseus and Ariadne--Ariadne deserted--the coming of Bacchus--hymeneal festival--nymphs and satyrs frisking against a background of blue sea. Kenrick thought of Beatrix Harefield as he walked slowly up and down. How well her stately beauty would become the room! how well the room would become her! She was just the wife for the master of such a place as Culverhouse. It seemed a hard thing that honour forbade his putting himself forward as her suitor. ‘How do I know that she cares for Cyril?’ he asked himself; ‘and if she does not, why should not I have my chance? Cyril is such a close fellow. I don’t know how far things have gone between them. She may not care a straw for him. And I may go back to India, and leave her to be snapped up by some adventurer. I must have the matter placed on a plainer footing when I go back to Little Yafford. If Cyril does not mean to go in and win the prize, I must have my innings. It will be only fair.’ CHAPTER XIV. BELLA OVERHEARS A CONVERSATION. NEVER in her life had Isabella Scratchell been so happy as she was in those winter days which Beatrix spent in her solitary home, or in long lonely rides or drives across the moor. Isabella, whose time had seldom been given to idleness, now worked day and night. She could not altogether withdraw her help from the overtaxed house-mother, so she sat up for an hour or two nightly, when the rest of the family had gone to bed, mending and making for the insatiable brood. ‘Never mind, ma,’ she would say when Mrs. Scratchell was on the verge of distraction about a skirt, or a ‘waist,’ a pair of impracticable socks, or trousers that were gone at the knee; ‘leave your basket, and I’ll make it right when you’re gone to bed.’ ‘But, Bella, my dear,’ sighed the mother, ‘it’s so bad for your health to sit up ever so long after twelve. Working so hard as you do all the day, too. I wish you had never taken that district visiting into your head.’ ‘District fiddlesticks!’ growled Mr. Scratchell from behind his newspaper. He was inconveniently quick of hearing, like the generality of fathers. ‘District stuff and nonsense! Visiting the poor means running after curates.’ ‘It’s a great shame to say such a thing, pa,’ cried Bella, crimsoning. ‘I’m sure I try hard enough to be useful at home, and I give mother the best part of my salary towards the housekeeping. I ought to be free to do a little good abroad, if it makes me happy.’