“The connoisseurs of the present day will have nothing to say to my pretty room,” said Lady Curtis; “but perhaps you are of that way of thinking, and like darkness and neutral tints. No? I am glad of that. This is where I have spent almost all my life,” she said, dropping into that tempting strain of gentle reminiscence which seems to come natural to us all, when we grow old among the young, as just the other day we were young among the old, and liked to draw that soft babble of memory from elder lips. Nancy felt the charm of it, which soothed her even in her excitement, and looked up listening with eyes that grew bigger and bigger, like the listening eyes of a child. “I furnished it at my own pleasure, after I was married, when I came first to Oakley;” she said. “Sir John does not care for these sort of things, he was always pleased when I was always pleased; and all our little talks we did here; and then the children--all that they had to say to mamma, this was the place. When Arthur was a boy at school, he always came rushing in here the moment he arrived; and here they made all their plans, he and his school friend, Lewis, who is a very dear friend still. I think I can see their little faces with the firelight upon them,” said Lady Curtis. “My Arthur! Ah, if he had always been as open with me as he was then!” Nancy was choking with her tears. It was all that she could do not to cry out--it was my fault, it was my fault! all she could to keep herself from creeping to Lady Curtis’s feet, and kissing them, and crying her heart out. She sat still and kept silent, she could not tell how. “But I must not talk of that, and make myself cry,” said my lady, “that would be poor entertainment for you. All these things are presents, they have been brought me one time or another. Sir John gave me my clock; it is a genuine seventeenth century one, and we picked it up by the merest chance. Arthur brought me that Sèvres the first time he went abroad. Come, I have upset you with my absurd talk. I can see you know what it is to be in trouble about those you love.” My lady was behind Nancy at the moment, and suddenly put her arms round her, and gave her a little half-embrace. It was gratitude for her supposed feeling. Nancy stumbled up to her feet with a great cry, “Oh, my lady--my lady! if you knew! if you only knew!” Lady Curtis looked at her fixedly, her cheek flushed a little. After all she knew nothing of this strange young woman whom she had received so rashly. What if she should turn out to be--something not fit for the company of good women? She looked at her with a momentary suspicion.