‘Gerald, do you think that I would change a thing that your mother cared for? The rooms are lovely in themselves; but were they ever so old-fashioned or shabby, I should like them best as your mother left them.’ ‘Lina, you are simply perfect!’ exclaimed Gerald tenderly. ‘You are just the one faultless woman I have ever met. Chaucer’s Grisel was not a diviner creature.’ ‘I hope you are not going to try my sister as that horrid man in the story tried Grisel,’ cried Daphne, bristling with indignation. ‘I only wish I had lived in those days, and had the reversion of Count Walter, as a widower. I’d have made him repent his brutality.’ ‘I have no doubt you would have proved skilful in the art of husband-government,’ said Gerald. ‘But you needn’t be alarmed. Much as I admire Grisel I shan’t try to emulate her husband. I could not leave my wife in agony, and walk away smiling at the cleverness of my practical joke. Well, Lina, then it is settled that in these rooms there is to be no alteration,’ he added, turning to Madoline, who had been taking up the volumes on a little ebony bookstand and looking at their titles. ‘Please make no alteration anywhere. Let the house be as your father and mother arranged it.’ ‘My sweet conservative! And we are to keep all the old servants, I conclude. They are all of my father’s and mother’s choosing.’ ‘Pray keep them all. If you could any way find room for MacCloskie, without offending your head gardener——’ ‘MacCloskie shall be superintendent of your own special hot-houses, my darling. It will be an easy, remunerative place—good wages and plenty of perquisites.’ A grinding of wheels on the gravel, and a tremendous peal of the bell at the principal entrance proclaimed the advent of a visitor. ‘Aunt Rhoda, no doubt,’ said Gerald. ‘Let us be sober.’ They went back to the hall to greet the new arrival. It was Mrs. Ferrers’s youthful groom, a smart young gentleman of the tiger species, who had made that tremendous peal. Mrs. Ferrers’s roan ponies were scratching up the gravel; but Mrs. Ferrers was not alone; a gentleman had just dismounted from a fine upstanding bay, and that gentleman was Edgar Turchill. ‘So glad to see you here, Aunt Rhoda,’ cried Gerald. ‘Why, Turchill, they told me you were in London!’ ‘Came home last night, rode over to South Hill this morning, overtook Mrs. Ferrers on the way, and——’ ‘I asked him to come on with me and to join in our round of inspection,’ said Aunt Rhoda. ‘I hope I did not do very wrong.’ ‘You did very right. I don’t think Turchill feels himself much of a stranger at the Abbey, even though it has been a very inhospitable place for the last year or so. And now before we go in for any more business let’s proceed to luncheon. Your boat has had a most invigorating effect on my appetite, Daphne. I’m simply famished.’ ‘So you came in Daphne’s boat. She rows pretty well, doesn’t she?’ asked Edgar, with a glance of mingled pride and tenderness at his pupil.