The room was elegantly simple--an escritoire in the Sherraton style--two or three book-tables crowded with small volumes in exquisite binding, vellum, creamy calf, brown Russia, red edges, gold edges, painted edges, all the prettinesses of bookbinding--half a dozen low chairs--downy nests covered with soft tawny Indian silk, with here and there a brighter patch of colour in the shape of a plush pillow or an old brocade anti-macassar--voluminous curtains of the same soft tawny silk, embroidered with poppies and corn-flowers--a few choice flowers in old Venetian vases--a large peacock-feather fan thrown beside an open book, upon a low pillow-shaped ottoman. Christabel gazed round the room in blank surprise--nothing gaudy--nothing vulgar--nothing that indicated sudden promotion from the garret to the drawing-room--an air of elegant luxury, of supreme fashion in all things--but no glare of gilding, no discords in form or colour. "Your name, if you please, madam?" said the servant, a model of decorum in well-brushed black. "Perhaps, you had better take my card. I am not personally known to Miss Mayne," answered Christabel, opening her card-case. "Oh!" she exclaimed suddenly, as with a cry of pain. "I beg your pardon," said the servant, alarmed. "It's nothing. A picture startled me--that was all. Be good enough to tell Miss Mayne that I shall be very much obliged to her if she will see me." "Certainly, madam!" said the man, as he retired with the card, wondering how a young lady of such distinguished appearance happened to call upon his mistress, whose feminine visitors were usually of a more marked type. "I dare say she's collectin' funds for one of their everlastin' churches," thought the butler, "'igh, low, or Jack, as I call 'em--'igh church, low church, or John Wesley--ever so many predominations, and all of 'em equally keen after money. But why did she almost s'riek when she clapt her eyes on Mr. 'Amleigh's portrait, I wonder, just as if she had seen a scorpiont." Christabel stood motionless where the man left her, looking at a photograph on a brass easel upon an old ebony table in the middle of the room. A cluster of stephanotis in a low Venetian vase stood in front of that portrait, like flowers before a shrine. It was an exquisitely painted photograph of Angus Hamleigh--Angus at his best and brightest, before the flush and glory of youth had faded from eyes and brow--Angus with a vivacity of expression which she had never seen in his face--she who had known him only since the fatal hereditary disease had set its mark upon him. "Ah!" she sighed, "he was happier when he loved her than he ever was with me."