They followed Charlotte round the rooms of Ladingford Manor. There on the walls were the tapestries that had inspired John Lambert, and there were the tapestries even more beautiful that himself had woven. On the tables were the books John Lambert had printed, which gave positively the aspect of being treasures by the discretion of their external appearance. In other rooms hung the original pictures of hackneyed mezzotints; and how rare they looked now with their velvety pigments of emerald and purple, of orange, cinnabar and scarlet glowing in the tempered sunlight! Margaret, as she moved from room to room, seemed with her weight of dusky hair and fastidious remoteness to belong to the company of lovely women whose romances filled these splendid scenes; but Pauline was life, irradiating with her joy each picture and giving to it the complement of its own still beauty. "Mrs. Lambert keeps very well, miss," said Charlotte, as they came out again from the house. "But, of course, she doesn't get about much now. Yet we can't really complain, especially with this fine weather." "Would you like some more beer?" Mrs. Lambert asked, when they joined her again in the yew parlor. They said they were no longer thirsty; and, having thanked her for the pleasures of the visit, they left her in the past, returning by the pale-green path across the meadows to where the _Naiad_ lay by the old bridge. "Oh, I did want some tea," sighed Margaret. "I love Mrs. Lambert," cried Pauline, dancing through the meads. "Wasn't it touching of her to offer Margaret beer? Oh, Guy, when we're married and when you die and I receive young poets at Plashers Mead, shall I offer their future sisters-in-law home-brewed beer? Oh, but I'm sure I shall forget to offer them anything."