Mrs. Rebell was surprised to note the state and decorum with which the meal to which she sat down in the dining-room was served. She looked with some curiosity at the elderly impassive butler and the young footman--where had they been at the moment of her arrival? Barbara had yet to learn that implicit obedience to the wills of Doctor McKirdy and of Mrs. Turke was the rule of life in Chancton Priory, but that even they, who when apart were formidable, and when united irresistible, had to give way when any of their fancies controverted a desire, however lightly expressed, of their mistress. Doctor McKirdy would long ago have abolished the office of butler, and even more that of footman; it irked him that two human beings,--even though one, that selected by himself, was a Scotchman,--should be eating almost incessantly the bread of idleness. But Madame Sampiero had made it clear that she wished the entertainment of her infrequent guests to be carried on exactly as if she herself were still coming and going with fleet, graceful steps about the house of which she had been for so many years the proud and happy mistress. She liked to feel that she was still dispensing hospitality in the stately dining-room, from the walls of which looked down an odd collection of family portraits, belonging to every period of English history and of English art; some, indeed the majority, so little worthy from the artistic point of view, that they had been considered unfit to take their places on the cedarwood panels of the great reception rooms. * * * * * Barbara found the doctor waiting for her in the hall, walking impatiently up and down, his big head thrust forward, his hands clasped behind his back. He was in high good humour, well pleased with the new inmate of the Priory, and impressed more than he knew by Barbara's fragile beauty and air of high breeding. In theory no living man was less amenable to the influence of feminine charm or of outward appearance, but in actual day-to-day life Alexander McKirdy, doubtless owing to the old law of opposites, had a keen feeling for physical perfection, and all unconsciously he abhorred ugliness. As Mrs. Rebell came silently towards him from behind the Chinese screen which concealed the door leading from the great hall to the dining-room, he shot but at her a quick approving glance. Her white gown, made more plainly than was the fashion of that hour, fell in austere folds about her upright slender figure; the knowledge that she was about to see Madame Sampiero had brought a flush to her pale cheeks and a light to her dark eyes. Without a word the doctor turned and led the way up the winding stair with which Barbara was already feeling a pleasant sense of familiarity; an old staircase is the last of household strongholds which surrenders to a stranger.