'Magnificent pile?' he suggested dryly. 'That is what some of my uncle's guests used to call it. My mother's name for it was the "White Elephant." Even Uncle Wantley could hardly have lived here if his wife had not been a very wealthy woman. Of course, to Penelope the essential ugliness of the place has always been very distasteful; and this perhaps is fortunate, as Marston Lydiate was the only thing my uncle possessed which he could not leave to her away from me.' Still, he felt a thrill of pleasurable excitement when the carriage stopped beneath the large Corinthian portico; and he was touched as well as amused by the rather pompous welcome tendered by the crowd of servants, the majority of whom he had known all his life, either in their present situations or as his own village contemporaries. He was moved by the heartiness with which they greeted him and his young wife, and pleased at the discretion with which they finally vanished, leaving him and Cecily alone with the housekeeper, Mrs. Moss. We are often assured that a servant's life is cast in pleasant places, and each member of such a household as that of Marston Lydiate doubtless enjoys a sense of security denied to many a free man and free woman. But human nature craves for the unusual, and what can exceed the utter dulness of life below stairs when the master or mistress of such an establishment becomes old or broken in health? Cecily would have been amused had she known of the long discussions which had taken place between Mrs. Moss, the housekeeper, and Mr. Jenkins, the butler, as to whether she or he should have the supreme pleasure and excitement of leading the couple, who were still regarded, in that house at least, as a bridal pair, through the ornate state-rooms to that which had been set apart and prepared for their use as the most 'cosy' of them all. The privilege had been finally conceded to Mrs. Moss, it being admitted that, with regard to a new Lady Wantley, such was her undoubted right; and the worthy woman would have been shocked indeed had she realized that Cecily, while being conducted through the splendid rooms, each lighted up with a huge fire--the English servant's ideal of welcome--was feeling very glad that fate had not made her mistress of Marston Lydiate. 'Mr. Jenkins thought your ladyship would like tea in the Cedar Drawing-room.' Their long progress had come to an end, and Wantley was pleased that the room chosen had always been his own favourite apartment, among many which, though not lacking in the curious pompous charm of the grand period when Marston Lydiate had been built and furnished, were yet, to his fastidious taste, overdecorated and overladen with silk and gilding.