What had been done with the modern furniture that had been saved on the night of the fire? We may learn this, and some other matters also, when the Colonel comes in to lunch. He crosses his great hall, and goes straight to the dining-room. The twelve years that have passed by have aged him even more than so many dozens of months ought to have done. His hair is getting prematurely gray, and his step, though still firm and manly, has lost a good deal of its elasticity, and something of its grace. The expression on his countenance does not quite correspond with all the glory of the paradise that is his, with the sunshine on the broad green park and vast shade-bestowing trees, with the rich peace of these cool and silent halls. When he is with other people, his face is very much as it used to be; but when he is alone, as he is now, it looks weary and haggard, as if to live were an effort and a care--as if some hateful anxiety haunted him, and wore him hour after hour. "Tell her ladyship that I have come in to lunch; and stay--you need not wait upon us to-day." Lady Helena comes with her scarcely audible little step, and quietly takes her place at the table. _She_ is not very much changed by the lapse of these last twelve years. She is still rather pretty, and she looks as intelligent as ever, though not perhaps quite so lively. But as for liveliness, she has nothing to encourage her vivacity just now, for the Colonel eats his slice of cold beef in silence, and scarcely even looks in her direction. When he looks up at all, it is at the window,--not that there is any thing particular to be seen there--only the sunny garden with the fountain, fed from the hills behind. "My dear," said Lady Helena, "as the regiment is disbanded now, I suppose we have no longer any reason to remain at Wenderholme? Suppose we went up to town again for the end of the season? There are several people that you promised to see, and didn't call upon before you came away. There's old Lady Sonachan's ball on the 15th, and I think we ought to do something ourselves in Grosvenor Square--you know we meant to do, if the training of the regiment had not been a fortnight earlier than we expected." "I think it would be as well to stop quietly at Wenderholme." "I'm afraid, dear," said Lady Helena, caressingly, "that you're losing your good habits, and going back to the ideas you had many years ago, before the militia began. You've been so very nice for a long time now that it would be a pity to go back again to what you used to be before you were properly civilized. For you know, dear, you were _not_ quite civilized then--you were _sauvage_, almost a recluse; and now you like society, and it does you good--doesn't it, dear? Everybody ought to go into society--we all of us need it. _Do_ come with me to town, dear, and after that I will go with you wherever you like."