Then Godfrey bethought him of the other door, that which led into the ancient refectory, which was now used as a schoolroom. This was open, so he went in and, being tired after his long journey, sat himself down in the chair at the end of the old oak table, that same chair in which Isobel had kissed him when he was a little boy. He looked about him vaguely; the place, of course, was much the same as it had been for the last five hundred years, but, as he could see from the names on the copybooks that lay about, the pupils who inhabited it had changed. Of the whole six not one was the same. Then, perhaps for the first time, he began to understand how variable is the world, a mere passing show in which nothing remains the same, except the houses and the trees. Even these depart, for a cottage with which he had been familiar from his earliest infancy, as he could see through the open door, was pulled down to make room for “improvements,” and the great old elm, where the rooks used to build, had been torn up in a gale. Only its ugly stump and projecting roots were left. So he sat musing there, very depressed at heart, till at length Mrs. Parsons came and discovered him in a half-doze. She, too, was somewhat changed, for of a sudden age had begun to take a hold of her. Her hair was white now, and her plump, round face had withered like a spring apple. Still, she greeted him with the old affection, for which he felt grateful, seeing that it was the first touch of kindness he had known since he set foot on English ground. “Dear me, Master Godfrey!” she said, “hadn’t I heard that you were coming, I could never have been sure that it was you. Why, you’ve grown into a regular young gentleman in those foreign parts, and handsome, too, though I sez it. Who could have guessed that you are your father’s son? Why, you’d make two of him. But there, they say that your mother was a good-looking lady and large built, though, as I never set eyes on her, I can’t say for sure. Well, you must be tired after all this travelling in steamships and trains, so come into the dining-room and have some tea, for I have got the key to the sideboard.” He went, and, passing through the hall, left his alpenstock in the umbrella-stand. In due course the tea was produced, though for it he seemed to have little appetite. While he made pretence to eat the thick bread and butter, Mrs. Parsons told him the news, such as it was. Sir John was living in town and “flinging the money about, so it was said, not but what he had got lots to fling and plenty to catch it,” she added meaningly. His poor, dear lady was dead, and “happy for her on the whole.” Miss Isobel had “gone foreign,” having, it was told, quarrelled with her father, and nothing had been heard of her since she went. She, too, had grown into a fine young lady. That was all he gathered before Mrs. Parsons was obliged to depart to see to her business—except that she was exceedingly glad to see him.