He had just sent the lad away proud and happy by his delicately implied praise of the Wood House and its inmates.
"I am quite sure that I shall get on with your sisters, Cedric," he had said with good-natured condescension; "they seem to me such thoroughly good, kind-hearted women, and very superior to the generality of folk.
How beautifully your sister Elizabeth sings! I have seldom heard a voice that pleased me better." "They both like you," returned Cedric shyly.

"Dinah told me so at once; and though Elizabeth did not actually say so, I could see by her manner how she enjoyed talking to you;" and indeed Malcolm had never been in better form.
It had been a very pleasant evening; the small oval dinner-table, with its flowers exquisitely arranged, the open windows, with the dogs lying out on the terrace, were all to Malcolm's taste.

Everything was so well-appointed and so well-managed.

The servants were evidently old retainers, and took a warm interest in their mistress's guests.
After dinner they had their coffee on the terrace, and watched the sun setting behind the fir woods, and when the last yellow gleam had faded away from the sky, at Dinah's suggestion Elizabeth went into the drawing-room, where two pink-shaded lamps were already lighted, and seated herself at the piano.
"There is no occasion for us to go in," observed Dinah, who had noticed Malcolm's evident enjoyment of his cigarette; "we shall hear her perfectly out here, and Mr.Carlyon will turn over for her." Such is human nature, for one instant Malcolm felt strongly impelled to throw away his cigarette and oust Mr.Carlyon from his snug corner, if only to teach him his place; but indolence prevailed: his cigarette was too delicious, the air was so refreshing and balmy, and the pale globes of the evening primroses and the milky whiteness of the nicotianas gleamed so entrancingly in the soft dusk, that he felt himself unwilling to move.

Even the curious notes of the night-jar seeking its prey in the dim light had a strange fascination for him, and he spoke of it more than once to Dinah.