The man went across the garden and through the wilderness of shrubs. There stood his master at an open gate, talking to a very pretty girl with bright hair and rosy cheeks. "My mistress wishes to see you, Mr. Adam." Adam Andinnian turned round, a defiant expression on his haughty face, as if he did not like the interruption. He was a very fine man of some three-and-thirty years, tall and broad-shouldered, with his mother's cast of proud, handsome features, her fresh complexion, and her black hair. His eyes were dark grey; deeply set in the head, and rarely beautiful. His teeth also were remarkably good; white, even, and prominent, and he showed them very much. "Tell my mother I'll come directly, Hewitt." Hewitt went back with the message. The young lady who had turned to one of her own flower-beds, for the gardens joined, was bending over some budding tulips. "I think they will be out next week, Mr. Andinnian," she looked round to say. "Never mind the tulips," he answered after a pause, during which he had leaned on the iron railings, looking dark and haughty. "I want to hear more about this." "There's nothing more to hear," was the young lady's answer. "That won't do, Rose. Come here." And she went obediently. The house to which this other garden belonged was a humble, unpretending dwelling, three parts cottage, one part villa. A Mr. Turner lived in it with his wife and niece. The former was in good retail business in the town: a grocer: and he and his wife were as humble and unpretending as their dwelling. The niece, Rose, was different. Her father had been a lawyer in small local practice: and at his death Rose--her mother also dead--was taken by her uncle and aunt, who loved both her and her childish beauty. Since then she had lived with them, and they educated her well. She was a good girl: and in the essential points of mind, manner, and appearance, a lady. But her position was of necessity a somewhat isolated one. With the tradespeople of the town Rose Turner did not care to mix: she felt that, however worthy, they were beneath her: quite of another order altogether: on the other hand, superior people would not associate with Miss Turner, or put so much as the soles of their shoes over the doorsill of the grocer's house. At sixteen she had been sent to a finishing school: at eighteen she came back as pretty and as nice a girl as one of fastidious taste would wish to see.