It was a large, cheerful front room, two floors above the drawing-room, and Anna had made it very pretty and comfortable.

Here she kept her books and all her treasures, and here her canaries twittered and sang in the sunshine.

Malcolm, who loaded her with presents, had himself selected the handsomely framed prints that adorned the walls; his favourite "Huguenot," and "The Black Brunswicker," and Luke Fildes's "Doctor," and some of Leader's landscapes, had their places there.

In this room Anna spent her leisure hours, few and far between as they were; here she read and thought and wrote her letters to Malcolm--sweet, maidenly letters, which he read lightly and tossed aside with a smile, not unkindly, but with the preoccupied carelessness of a busy man.
The sound of their voices brought Dawson to the door.

She was a little pincushiony woman, with bunched-up gray curls, which she wore in defiance of all prevailing fashions, and of which she was secretly very proud;.