Therewith the woman vanished, after giving Millicent a knowing look, which Frank felt sure spoke of wholesale bribery. ‘I say, Millicent,’ said Frank, ‘we can’t go walking about a man’s house alone, in this fashion.’ ‘My dear,’ said Millicent very seriously, ‘I pledged my honour we would pocket nothing.’ Then she broke into an hysterical little laugh; and Frank wondered what had come to his wife. ‘Let us go to the drawing-room first,’ she said, recovering her gravity, and opening the door pointed out by the housekeeper. Frank passed through the doorway, and for a moment could think of nothing but how he should keep himself from quite breaking down. The room looked almost the same as when he last entered it—the same as he had known it from his earliest days. Every chair and table the same, or apparently so. Then he remembered that the purchaser of the house had also bought nearly all the household furniture. At the time, he was glad to think the old place would not be dismantled; now he regretted it had not been. The presence of the well-remembered Lares and Penates left the old home unchanged in all—save that it was no longer his home. There was the very stool on which as a boy he used to sit at his mother’s feet; there was the wonderful Japanese cabinet, with dozens of little lackered drawers, which used to be opened now and again as a great treat to him. And here was he standing in the middle of these old household gods, by permission of another man’s servant. He wished he had been firm, and not yielded to Millicent’s whim.