Kenrick had done wonders in his two days of preparation. He had got in a brace of apple-faced young women, from the village, one a housemaid out of place, the other her younger sister, still on her promotion, but ready to do anything she was bidden. The old rooms had been furbished up. Traces of decay were still visible in every part of the house, but dust and cobwebs had been swept away, and a general air of freshness and purity pervaded the good old rooms. Beatrix was enraptured with everything. She seemed to forget her sorrows amidst these new surroundings. Her life had been spent in a prison-house, and this first taste of liberty was sweet. After all, perhaps, even for her, deserted and cast off by the one man she had ever loved, life held something worth having. Kenrick led his young guest all round the ruins next morning, before breakfast. They were both early risers, and had found each other in the garden before Mr. and Mrs. Dulcimer had left their rooms. They went into the cloistered quadrangle, where the roses flourished in summertime, and where now the wallflowers flashed golden and ruby upon the old gray stones, with colours as vivid as the stained glass that had once filled the place with rainbow light. Kenrick showed Beatrix the plan of the vanished abbey--the nave here, the transept there, the chancel and apse beyond. Everything was indicated by stones embedded at intervals in the close-cropped turf, where the sheep browsed happily, unconscious of the sanctified splendour that had preceded them, the white-robed choir, and swinging censers, the banners and jewelled crosiers that had passed beneath the Gothic arches which had once spanned that fair pasture. Kenrick seemed as sorry for the evanishment of the abbey as if he had been a papist of the deepest dye. ‘It is dreadful to think that a great part of the house is built out of the abbey stones,’ he said. ‘I sometimes wonder it doesn’t tumble on our heads. But tradition says the monks of Culverhouse were lazy and ignorant, and that there was only one book, an ancient treatise upon Hunting and Fishing, found in this abode of monastic learning, when its treasures were confiscated.’ Beatrix had explored every inch of the grounds before the long-disused gong, which in days past had called poor lonely Lady Culverhouse to her anchorite repasts, sounded hoarsely from the hall. Mr. and Mrs. Dulcimer were standing in the porch, scenting the morning air, when Kenrick and his companion went in. ‘How well the dear girl looks!’ said the Vicar’s wife; ‘the change has done her good already. You are enjoying Culverhouse, are you not, Beatrix?’ ‘I am very glad to be away from Little Yafford,’ Beatrix answered, frankly. ‘In that case you ought never to go back,’ said Kenrick. ‘What a selfish remark!’ exclaimed Mrs. Dulcimer, hypocritically. ‘How do you suppose I am to exist without Beatrix, after having had her as my adopted daughter for the last three months?’