The evening was warm to sultriness, and there were several casements open in the long window which filled one end of the room; a window with richly carved sashes and panels of cedar and lattice-work alternating with the glass. There was another window in the western wall, less elaborate--a door-window--which formed the usual exit to the garden. This was closed, but not curtained. The room was lighted only with shaded lamps, which lighted the tables and the spaces round them, but left the corners in shadow. Lady Emily was sitting at one of the tables, her fingers occupied with a large piece of work, which she carried about with her wherever she went, and which, to the eye of the uninitiated, never appeared to make any progress towards completion. It was destined eventually to cover the grand piano at Fendyke, and it was to be something very rare and precious in the way of embroidery; the basis a collection of Breton shawl-pattern handkerchiefs, overlaid by Lady Emily with embroidery in many-coloured silks and Japanese gold thread. This piece of work was a devouring monster in the matter of silk, and Lady Emily was always telling her friends the number of skeins which were required for its maintenance, and the cost of the gold thread which made so faint an effect in the Oriental labyrinth of palms and sprigs and arabesques and medallions. "I'm afraid I shall never live to finish it," Lady Emily would conclude with a sigh, throwing herself back in her chair after an hour's steadfast labour, her eyes fixed in a kind of ecstasy upon the little corner of palm which she had encrusted with satin stitch and gold; "but if I _do_, I really think it will repay me for all my trouble." To-night her mind was divided between her embroidery and her son, who sat on a three-cornered chair beside her, meekly threading her needles while he tried to get her to talk about Suzette. His father was seated almost out of earshot, at a table near the open window, reading the _Nineteenth Century_ by the light of a lamp which shone full upon his lowered eyelids, and on the thoughtful brow and sensitive mouth, as he sat in a reposeful attitude in the low, deep chair. "Do I like Miss Vincent?" repeated Lady Emily, when she had turned a critical corner in the leafy edging of a scroll. "I wonder how often you will make me tell you that I think her a very--no, Allan, the light peacock, please--not that dark shade--very sweet girl--bright, unaffected----" "And exquisitely lovely," interjected her son, as he handed her the needleful of silk. "Ah, there you exaggerate awfully. She is certainly a pretty girl; but her nose is--well, I hardly know how to describe it; but there is a fault somewhere in the nose, and her mouth might be smaller; but, on the other hand, she has fine eyes. Her manners are really charming--that pretty little Parisian air which is so fascinating in a high-bred Parisian. But, oh, Allan! can you really mean to marry her?"