The good old honest furniture of the room was all of the 'old school,' and had been familiar to her from her childhood; the vast sofa with its wide arms and cosy cushions; the dark mahogany sideboard that was like a mural monument, with two urn-like knife-boxes thereon, and over which hung an old, old circular convex mirror, surmounted by an eagle with a glass ball in its beak. The horsehair chairs were ranged in rank and file along the wall; and all these household features spoke to Mary's heart so much of the past and of home that the details of the room gave her a sensation of acute agony, as she caught them at a glance and covered her face with her hands. She tried to realise the new life--the homeless life--that must lie before her and Ellinor now, and the rocks, the shoals, and pitfalls that too probably would be ahead. Her first emotion of relief--if it could be called so--came when she shared her grief with the startled Ellinor; and far into the August night sat the two crushed creatures talking over the storm-cloud that had so suddenly enveloped them--a cloud that must have descended at some time, though as yet they had not quite foreseen it. 'I cannot believe it--I cannot realise it!' said they both, conjunctly and severally, again and again, as they mingled their tears and caresses together, each clinging to the other as if for consolation and help. 'What on earth will become of us!' exclaimed Ellinor, pushing back the masses of dark brown hair from her forehead. 'We shall go away, and at once, in search of a new home--a little nest somewhere far away from all who know us, Ellinor; for the condolence, the wonder, surmises, and pity of neighbours would prove intolerable to me!' exclaimed Mary. 'We shall have to put our shoulders to the wheel, as poor papa used to say when in money straits. I must turn my French and music to account.' 'And I my drawing,' said Ellinor. 'Yes, dearest,' added Mary, kissing her, 'my few accomplishments will require some brushing up, but your pencil is always a ready one; and people never know what they can do till they try. But then, Birkwoodbrae--dear, bonnie Birkwoodbrae--to think we shall never see it more!' exclaimed Mary, relapsing into a storm of grief again; after which she became more composed, and began resolutely to think of the future that must be faced--the future which would necessarily begin for them on the morrow; and as Mary was by nature independent and self-reliant, as she thought on the pittance left them by their father, she said that, by God's help, they might battle with the world yet; and battle with it too in London. The human mind, it has been said, is naturally pliable, and, provided it has the most slender hope to lean upon, adapts itself to the exigencies of fortune, especially if the imagination be a gay and luxuriant one.