It was a long, low room with three beautiful windows reaching the whole length of the wall; the loch stretched out below the lawn; and there was a gap in the trees so that the view of the shining water and the wooded heights on the farther side lay open to the eyes. The floor was covered with the same simple green druggetting. Geraldine had good taste, and simplicity reigned all over the house. The walls were painted cream and the furniture was fumed oak, but the couches and chairs were all covered with green and white chintz, and Rowena's couch was drawn up near one of the windows, a table by its side. A bright wood fire was blazing in the low grate. The room looked cheerful; old Granny had even gathered some yellow flags and put them in a china jug upon the mantelpiece. There was a door leading into a similar room behind, originally the smoking-room, and now to be used by Rowena as her bedroom. Ellen looked round with critical eyes, but even she could not find any faults with the arrangements for the invalid's comfort. "And there's my granddaughter, Janet, will be up in the morning early," said Granny. "The mistress said she should wait on ye in the morn, and also in the eve." She introduced a rosy smiling girl to Rowena, and Ellen heaved a sigh of relief. "I'm glad you'll have somebody to wait on you, ma'am, for that old body seems ready for the grave!" "Oh, Ellen, for shame! It is the outdoor work she does that makes her so wrinkled. Granny is good for twenty years yet. And you should taste her oatcakes and scones! No one can beat her at cakes!" Half an hour later Rowena was lying on her couch with the table drawn up by the side of it; and even Ellen could find no fault with the creamy scones and oatcakes, the excellent tea and bowl of rich yellow cream, and home-made butter, which Janet smilingly brought to them. Rowena went early to bed, and when Ellen left her the next morning she was unwillingly convinced that her charge would be comfortable, but "desperately solitary" she assured herself with a lugubrious shake of her head. CHAPTER II ALONE "When from our better selves we have too long Been parted by the hurrying world, and droop Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired— How gracious, how benign is solitude!" Wordsworth. "MY DEAREST GERALDINE,—"