It was still the same homely, green, wainscotted room, with high, narrow windows looking on to the terrace. There was the same low, old-fashioned sideboard and silk-lined chiffonnier; the same leathern couch and cumbrous easy-chair; the same picture of 'Virtue and Vice,' smiling and glaring over the high wooden mantelpiece. Yes, the dear old room, as Mildred had fondly termed it in her happy three months' visit, was exactly the same; but Betha's drawing-room was metamorphosed into fairyland. All Arnold's descriptions had not prepared her for the pleasant surprise. Behind the double folding-doors lay a perfect picture-room, its wide bay looking over the sunny hills, and a glass door opening on the beck gravel of the courtyard. Outside, the long levels of green, with Cuyp-like touches of brown and red cattle, grouped together on the shady bank, tender hints of water gleaming through the trees, and the soft billowy ridges beyond; within, the faint purple and golden tints of the antique jars and vases, and shelves of rare porcelain, the rich hues of the china harmonising with the high-backed ebony chairs and cabinet, and the high, elaborately-finished mantelpiece, curiously inlaid with glass, and fitted up with tiny articles of _vertu_; the soft, blue hangings and Sèvres table and other dainty finishes giving a rich tone of colour to the whole. Mr. Lambert was somewhat of a _dilettante_, and his accurate taste had effected many improvements in the vicarage, as well as having largely aided in the work nearest his heart--the restoration of his church. The real frontage of the vicarage looked towards the garden terrace and Hillsbottom, the broad meadow that stretched out towards Hartley Fells, with Hartley Fold Farm and Hartley Castle in the distance; from its upper window the Nine Standards and Mallerstang, and to the south Wild-boar Fells, were plainly visible. But the usual mode of entrance was at the back. The gravelled sweep of courtyard, with its narrow grass bordering and flower-bed, communicated with the outhouses and stable-yard by means of a green door in the wall. The part of the vicarage appropriated to the servants' use was very old, dating, it is said, from the days of Henry VIII, and some of the old windows were still remaining. Mildred remembered the great stone kitchen and rambling cellarage and the cosy housekeeper's room, where Betha had distilled her fragrant waters and tied up her preserves. As she passed down the long passage leading to the garden-door she could see old Nan, bare-armed and bustling, clattering across the stones in her country clogs, the sunny backyard distinctly visible. Some hens were clucking round a yellow pan; the goat bleated from the distance; the white tombstones gleamed in the morning sun; a scythe cut crisply through the wet grass; a fleet step on the gravel behind the little summer-house lingered and then turned.