He handed her half-a-dozen, while he unfolded, for his own perusal, a journal of the day. If his intention was to close the discussion he had taken a drastic means of doing it. Ominous headlines stared at him from the open sheet: "Extraordinary Occurrence at Newcaster.--Murder of Mr George Emmett.--Mysterious Disappearance of a Young Lady.--Reward Offered for Dorothy Gilbert." As he read, reflections passed through his mind. "Vernon has often boasted to me that he never reads the police news, or any of his family either. This is a local rag; perhaps they won't make such a fuss of the thing in town. Anyhow, let's hope that on this occasion he's as good as his word, or I shall have to tell a longer story than I intended." CHAPTER XIII THE VERNONS--PARTICULARLY FRANCES Dorothy had never seen a prospect which pleased her better. There was grass beneath her feet--the exquisite grass which one seems to find only on an English lawn--thick and soft and springy, of such a restful green. There was croquet on one side; two tennis courts were beyond; with a well-shorn piece of grass, with big numbers on it, whose use she did not understand, which was really a clock for putting at golf; flowers were in beds and borders, on banks, and everywhere; there were great trees and smaller ones, shrubs and clustered bushes; behind was the long, low, old house, with its rose and creeper covered walls; in front was the river, sparkling, laughing in the sunshine, already alive with a greater variety of small pleasure craft than she had ever heard of. She had read of such places in English books at the convent; but she had scarcely even hoped ever to see one. Yet, here she was, transported, as if by the touch of a magician's wand, into what seemed to her to be a more perfect paradise than any of those she had read of, which she had been told she might regard, at least for some little time to come, almost as if it were her own home. After fourteen years spent within one set of walls, where nothing ever happened, events had crowded on her, all at once, so quickly; she had been so passed, as it were, from hand to hand; so hurried from scene to scene, that it was not strange if this final transformation almost seemed to her as if it were part and parcel of some long-continued dream, and that as she stood there, inhaling the pleasant air, the smell of the flowers, the sunshine, the indescribable aroma of the whole delightful scene, she was conscious, amid all the charm and sweetness, of a sense of shivering fear, lest this, the only pleasant phase of that drawn-out dream, should pass, as the rest of it had done, and its terror should return.