I prefer our present surroundings, and I should not mind at all if some of those disapproving ancestors of yours stepped out of their frames and took their places with us here." Cecil laughed.
"If they have been listening to our conversation," he said, "I think that they will stay where they are.

Like royalty," he continued, "we can boast an octagonal chamber.

I fear that its glories are of the past, but it is at least small, and the wallpaper is modern.

I have ordered coffee and the card-tables there.

Shall we go ?" He led the way out of the gloomy room, chilly and bare, yet in a way magnificent still with its reminiscences of past splendour, across the hall, modernized with rugs and recent furnishing, into a smaller apartment, where cheerfulness reigned.