The apartment in which Esther is thus left stranded is as large as the hall that she has just quitted. It seems to her oppressively immense--quite a long walk from the door to the inhabited portion. A very big roasting fire burns on the hearth: and right in front of it, in the very glare of its hot red eyes, sits a very old man, doubled together in an armchair--one hand in his breast, and his aged head sunk upon it, apparently fast asleep. An old lady, wrapped up in a shawl, reposes in another easy-chair, with her eyes likewise closed. A lamp with a green shade burns faintly on a centre table, and beyond lamp and table sits a third person, hidden by the lamp-shade from Esther's eyes. "Are they all asleep?" thinks the poor girl, advancing with gentle, hesitating steps. "They seem to be. How can I wake them?--or would it be disrespectful?" While she so speculates, the third person rises and comes forward. "How do you do, Miss Craven? You must have had a cold journey, I'm afraid?" says a bland, unforgotten voice. It is Miss Blessington. In an instant, Esther seems to have jumped back over the past intervening months--to be just entering on her Felton visit. There is the same voice greeting her--the same tones of polite inquiry; the same words almost, except that _then_ it was, "How do you do, Miss Craven? You must have had a hot journey, I'm afraid?" and now it is, "How do you do, Miss Craven? You must have had a cold journey, I'm afraid?"--the same undulating walk; the same effect of lilac evening clouds. Involuntarily she turns her head and glances towards the window, half-expecting to see St. John's legs disappearing through it. Instead, an old woman's voice sounds quavering: "Are you Miss Craven, my dear? Come here!" Esther does not hear. "It _was_ rather cold," she says, answering Constance, in half bewilderment between past and present, her eyes dazed with the light after her long, dark journey. "Mrs. Blessington is speaking to you," says Constance, in mild reminder. Esther turns round quickly. "Oh! I beg your pardon--I did not hear--I hope I was not rude," she cries, forgetting the "Ma'am" she had half-purposed employing. "Who's there?--who's talking?" asks the old man, lifting up his head, and speaking in a voice tremulous indeed, but with a remnant of the power and fire that "youth gone out had left in ashes." No one answers. "Who's there, Mrs. Blessington?" he repeats, with querulous anger. "Miss Craven, uncle--the young lady that we expected to-day--don't you know?" replies Constance, stooping gracefully over him, and putting her lips as close as possible to his withered ear. "H'm! Tell her to come and speak to me. I want to see what she is like," he rejoins, much as if she had not been in the room. "Go to him, my dear," says the old lady.