The house had looked pretty and small from the front, with rows of small twinkling windows and a low roof; but at the back the impression was very different. Various rooms built on to the original _corps du logis_ stood out into the lawn, with great bow windows, with green turf at their feet and creeping plants mantling about them. One of these, evidently the drawing-room, displayed handsome and luxurious furniture, of a tasteless but costly kind, through the softly fluttering lace curtains. The garden itself was large and beautifully cared for, showing both wealth and understanding. This gave a little comfort to Frederick’s mind, for gardening is an aristocratic taste. He pleased himself with thinking that perhaps this was Amanda’s doing; for no one could suspect Batty himself of caring so much for mere beauty. He walked about the beds and bosquets with a surprised sense of pleasure, finding the surroundings so much more graceful than he had hoped--and began to feel that his passion was thus justified. Presently she would appear, and fill those paths with light. It would be very different from the aspect under which she appeared in the London hotel. Here she was at home, surrounded by circumstances which she herself had moulded, which were sweetly adapted to her: and here for the first time he could see her as she was. A hope of something better than he had yet known, better than he deserved, stole over Frederick’s mind, he had fallen in love with mere beauty--that beauty which is but skin deep, and which all moralists preach against. Could it be that in so doing he was to find goodness, good taste, and refinement too? While he was thus musing, the sound of voices reached him from one of the open windows. It was a warm afternoon, almost like summer. A glimmer of firelight made itself visible in at least two of the rooms, and in both of these the windows were open. Frederick had no intention of eavesdropping, but when he heard the voice which he remembered so well he pricked up his ears. I am afraid there are few lovers who would not have done so. At first the talking was vague--not clear enough to reach him; but after a while it became louder in tone. The first to make itself heard was a voice which whimpered and complained, “After twenty years’ work for him and his: twenty years!” it said; and it wavered about as if the speaker was walking up and down the room with agitation. Sometimes she would stand still, and address the person to whom she was speaking, varying from complaint to anger. Frederick did not know this voice. It was only when another speaker burst in, in a still louder tone, that the situation became at all clear to him. The second voice rang at once into his heart. It was melodious enough in its ordinary sound--a round, full voice, not without sweetness; but something altogether new and unexpected came into it with these sharper and louder tones,--