Her ladyship wore long earrings of filigree gold. Round her neck was a massive gold chain. On her fingers sparkled several rings of price--diamonds, rubies, and opals. In figure her ladyship was tall, and as upright as a dart. She was, however, slightly lame of one foot, which necessitated the use of a cane when walking. Lady Pollexfen's cane was ivory-headed, and had a gold plate let into it, on which was engraved her crest and initials. She was seated in an elaborately-carved high-backed chair, near a table on which were the remains of a dessert for one person. The Green Saloon was a large gloomy room; at least, it looked gloomy as I saw it for the first time, lighted up by four wax candles where twenty were needed. These four candles being placed close by where Lady Pollexfen was sitting, left the other end of the saloon in comparative darkness. The furniture was heavy, formal, and old-fashioned. Gloomy portraits of dead-and-gone Pollexfens lined the green walls, and this might be the reason why there always seemed to me a slight graveyard flavour--scarcely perceptible, but none the less surely there--about this room which caused me to shudder involuntarily whenever I crossed its threshold. Lady Pollexfen's black eyes--large, cold, and steady as Juno's own--had been bent upon me all this time, measuring me from head to foot with what I felt to be a slightly contemptuous scrutiny. "What is your name, and how old are you?" she asked, with startling abruptness, after a minute or two of silence. "Janet Holme, and twelve years," I answered, laconically. A feeling of defiance, of dislike to this bedizened old woman, began to gnaw my child's heart. Young as I was, I had learned, with what bitterness I alone could have told, the art of wrapping myself round with a husk of cold reserve, which no one uninitiated in the ways of children could penetrate, unless I were inclined to let them. Sulkiness was the generic name for this quality at school, but I dignified it with a different term. "How many years were you at Park Hill Seminary? and where did you live before you went there?" asked Lady Pollexfen. "I have lived at Park Hill ever since I can remember anything. I don't know where I lived before that time." "Are your parents alive or dead? If the latter, what do you remember of them?" A lump came into my throat, and tears into my eyes. For a moment or two I could not answer. "I don't know anything about my parents," I said. "I never remember seeing them. I don't know whether they are alive or dead." "Do you know why you were consigned by the Park Hill people to this particular house--to Dupley Walls--to Me, in fact?" Her voice was raised almost to a shriek as she said these last words, and she pointed to herself with one claw-like finger. "No, my lady, I don't know why I was sent here. I was told to come, and I came."