‘I think I may go without being announced,’ said Laurie, who was a little proud of the _petites entrées_, though it was only to a humble house. As he went up the great, dingy staircase he put his fingers lightly through his hair, and looked with some dismay at the limp pinkness of the rose in his button-hole. It was hanging its head, as roses will when they feel the approach of frost in the air. There is a curious dinginess, which is not displeasing, in those old-fashioned houses. The walls were painted in a faint grey-green; the big stairs had a narrow Turkey carpet, very much worn, upon them, and went winding up the whole height of the house to a pale skylight in the roof. A certain size, and subdued sense, of airiness, and quiet, and space was in the house, though London raged all around, like a great battle. The arrangement of the first floor was much like that of Mr. Welby’s apartments. There was a great shadowy, dingy drawing-room, with three vast windows, always filled with a kind of pale twilight,--for it was the shady side of the Square,--and opening from that, by folding-doors, a second room, which did duty as Mrs. Severn’s dining-room; and behind that, again, the studio. The door of the dining-room was open, and Laurie paused, and went half in as he passed. The children were there with their daily governess, who was, poor soul! almost at the end of her labours. She was struggling hard to keep their attention to the last half of the last hour when the intruder’s head thrust in at the door made further control impossible. There were two small boys, under ten, and one little creature with golden locks, seated at the feet of the eldest of the family, who was working at the window. ‘Alice, with her curls,’ was almost too big for Miss Hadley’s teaching. She was seated in that demure, soft dignity of the child-woman, with all the importance of an elder sister, working at little Edith’s frock; a girl who rarely said anything, but thought the more; not beautiful, for her features were not regular, but with lovely, thoughtful brown eyes, and a complexion so sweet in its varying colour that it felt like a quality of the heart, and one loved her for it. Her curls were what most people of the outside world knew her by. In these days of _crée_ locks and elaborate hair-dressing, Alice’s soft, silken, perfect curls, nestling about her pretty neck, softly shed behind her ears, were distinction enough for any girl. They were chestnut,--that chestnut, with the gold in it, which comes next to everybody’s favourite colour in everybody’s estimation;--and there was a silken gloss upon them which was old-fashioned, but very sweet to see, once in a way. She sat,--in the perfectly unobtrusive dress of modern girlhood; simple frock up to the throat, little white frill, tiny gold locket, without even a ribbon on her hair,--against the afternoon light in the window, just raising her eyes with a smile in them to Laurie, and lifting up one slender finger