She went into the room, and stopped suddenly a few paces from the doorway. A gentleman was standing before the wide empty fireplace, where there was a great dog-stove of ironwork and brass which consumed about half a ton of coal a day in winter; a tall, ponderous-looking man, with his hands behind him, glancing downward with cold gray eyes, but not in the least degree inclining his stately head to listen to Lady Laura Armstrong, who was seated on a sofa near him, fanning herself and prattling gaily after her usual vivacious manner. Clarissa started and drew back at sight of this tall stranger. "Mr. Granger," she thought, and tried to make her escape without being seen. The attempt was a failure. Lady Laura called to her. "Who is that in a white dress? Miss Lovel, I am sure.--Come here, Clary--what are you running away for? I want to introduce my friend Mr. Granger to you.--Mr. Granger, this is Miss Lovel, the Miss Lovel whose birthplace fortune has given to you." Mr. Granger bowed rather stiffly, and with the air of a man to whom a bow was a matter of business. "I regret," he said, "to have robbed Miss Lovel of a home to which she was attached. I regret still more that she will not avail herself of my desire to consider the park and grounds entirely at her disposal on all occasions. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to see her use the place as if it were her own." "And nothing could be kinder than such a wish on your part." exclaimed my lady approvingly. Clarissa lifted her eyes rather shyly to the rich man's face. He was not a connoisseur in feminine loveliness, but they struck him at once as very fine eyes. He was a connoisseur in pictures, and no mean judge of them, and those brilliant hazel eyes of Clarissa's reminded him of a portrait by Velasquez, of which he was particularly proud. "You are very kind," she murmured; "but--but there are some associations too painful to bear. The park would remind me so bitterly of all I have lost since I was a child."