"I was rather surprised at the carriage sent to meet us. It was a stately affair, but with the varnish dull and cracked, and the horses fat and slow. In spite of the liveried coachman and footman on the box, the equipage was not what one might have expected from such a house as Royd Castle. I was inclined at first to think that it meant poverty, which is not always unallied to state; but there are all the signs of very ample means in this house, and I incline now to the opinion that in a woman’s house, as Royd Castle is at present, stable arrangements are not much bothered about. Lady Brent goes about very little. In fact there are no other houses near for her to visit. Poldaven Castle, I am told, one of the seats of the Marquis of Avalon, lies about seven miles off, but the family is hardly ever there. We ourselves, my dearest, shall be very much to ourselves in this out-of-the-way corner of the world. We shall have the people at the Castle, and our own more humble parishioners, and—ourselves. But how happy we shall be! The beauty of our surroundings alone would give us..." Mrs. Grant skimmed lightly over a description of the seven-mile drive from the little town by the sea, through rocky hilly country, bare of trees, but golden with gorse under a soft April sky flecked with fleecy clouds, and accepted without enthusiasm the statement that all nature, including the young lambs and the rabbits, seemed to be laughing with glee. She was anxious to get to Royd, which was to be her home, perhaps for the rest of her life. Trees had made their appearance in the landscape by the time it was reached, and she gained an impression of a kinder richer country than that of the coast. As they neared Royd there were picturesque stone-built farm-houses, and then a steep village street lined with stone-roofed cottages, their gardens bright with coloured primroses, daffodils, ribes, berberi, aubretia and arabis, and here and there a gay splash of cydonia japonica against a white-washed wall. Her husband was always particular about the names of plants. No mere "early spring flowers" for him! His descriptions were apt to read rather like a nurseryman’s catalogue, but as they both of them knew their way about nurserymen’s catalogues, she gained her picture of spring-garden colour and was pleased with it. It would be lovely to have a real big garden to play with, instead of the narrow oblong behind their semi-detached villa. But she did want to get to Lady Brent, and the rest of the household at the Castle.