Lady Joan walked straight to it, and dropped, with a little shiver, into a chair beside it.

To Cosmo the sight of the blaze brought a strange delight, like the discover of a new loveliness in an old friend.

To Lady Joan the room looked old-fashioned dreariness itself, to Cosmo an ancient marvel, ever fresh.
He left her, and ran to his own room, whence presently he returned with a pair of thick woollen stockings, knitted in green and red by the hands of his grandmother.

These he carried to Lady Joan, where she sat on the low chair, and kneeling before her, began, without apology or explanation, to draw one of them over the dainty foot placed on the top of the other in front of the fire.

She gave a little start, and half withdrew her foot; then looking down at the kneeling figure of service before her, recognized at once the utterly honest and self-forgetful earnestness of the boy, and submitted.