“This is the Rosebud Boudoir,” said Lady Anstruthers, smiling faintly. “All the rooms have names. I thought them so delightful, when I first heard them. The Damask Room--the Tapestry Room--the White Wainscot Room--My Lady's Chamber. It almost broke my heart when I saw what they looked like.” “It would be very interesting,” Betty commented slowly, “to make them look as they ought to look.” A remote fear rose to the surface of the expression in Lady Anstruthers' eyes. She could not detach herself from certain recollections of Nigel--of his opinions of her family--of his determination not to allow it to enter as a factor in either his life or hers. And Betty had come to Stornham--Betty whom he had detested as a child--and in the course of two days, she had seemed to become a new part of the atmosphere, and to make the dead despair of the place begin to stir with life. What other thing than this was happening as she spoke of making such rooms as the Rosebud Boudoir “look as they ought to look,” and said the words not as if they were part of a fantastic vision, but as if they expressed a perfectly possible thing? Betty saw the doubt in her eyes, and in a measure, guessed at its meaning. The time to pause for argument had, however not arrived. There was too much to be investigated, too much to be seen. She swept her on her way. They wandered on through some forty rooms, more or less; they opened doors and closed them; they unbarred shutters and let the sun stream in on dust and dampness and cobwebs. The comprehension of the situation which Betty gained was as valuable as it was enlightening. The descent into the lower part of the house was a new experience. Betty had not before seen huge, flagged kitchens, vaulted servants' halls, stone passages, butteries and dairies. The substantial masonry of the walls and arched ceilings, the stone stairway, and the seemingly endless offices, were interestingly remote in idea from such domestic modernities as chance views of up-to-date American household workings had provided her.