“_Il y’en a pour tous les goûts._ Medlow is liberty hall. If we were even to take it into our heads to have family prayers Lady Burdenshaw would send for her chaplain—pluck him out of the bosom of his family—and order him to read them. She doesn’t _like_ cards on a Sunday, because of the servants; but after the clock has struck eleven we may do what we please—play poker, nap, euchre, baccarat, till daylight, if we are in the humour. The billiard and smoke rooms, and the ball-room are at one end of the house, ever so far from the servants’ quarters. We can have as much fun as we like while those rustic souls are snoring.” Harrington sighed ever so faintly. This picture of a fashionable interior was perfectly innocent, and his betrothed’s way of looking at things meant nothing worse than girlish exuberance, fine animal spirits: but the _sans gêne_ of Medlow Court was hardly the kind of training he would have chosen for his future wife. And then he looked at the handsome profile, the piled-up mass of ruddy-brown hair on the top of the haughtily poised head, the perfectly fitting tailor gown, with its aristocratic simplicity, costing so much more than plebeian silks and satins; and he told himself that he was privileged in having won such exalted beauty to ally itself with his humble fortunes. Such a girl would shine as a duchess; and if marriageable dukes had eyes to see with, and judgment to guide their choice, that lovely auburn head would ere now have been crowned with a tiara of family diamonds instead of waiting for the poor sprigs of orange blossom which alone may adorn the brow of the solicitor’s bride. “Shall we go for a stroll in the grounds?” asked Juliet, with a restless air and an impatient shiver. “Perhaps it will be warmer out of doors than it is here. We keep such miserable fires in this house. I believe the grates were chosen with a view to burning the minimum of coal.” “I shall be delighted.” Laura was absent on a visit to Yorkshire cousins, strong-minded like herself, and with no pretensions to fashion. Lady Baldwin had retired for her afternoon siesta. On Sundays she always read herself to sleep with Taylor or South; on week-days she nodded over the morning paper. She had gone to the morning-room with the idea that Henry would take his friend to the stables, and that Juliet would require no looking after. It had never entered into her ladyship’s head that her handsome daughter would look so low as the son of her solicitor. Juliet was therefore free to do what she pleased with her afternoon, and her pleasure was to walk in the chilly shrubberies, and the bare grey park, sparsely timbered, and with about as little forestal beauty as a gentleman’s park can possess.