He has rich relatives, but for some reason or other they decline to support him; and yet he seems a gentleman.

He picks up a few shillings by painting portraits; but you English are shy of sitting--I wonder why?
And we--well, I suppose we prefer to wait till our faces grow happier." Dorothea had it on the tip of her tongue to ask how the General had discovered this genius; but the ring in his voice gave her pause.
Twice in the course of their short walk he had shown feeling; and she wondered at it, having hitherto regarded him as a cynical old fellow with a wit which cracked himself and the world like two dry nuts for the jest of their shrivelled kernels.

She did not, know that a kind word of hers had unlocked his heart; and before she could recall her question they had reached the stable-yard of "The Dogs." And after stabling Mercury it was but a step across to the inn.
The "Dogs Inn" took its name from two stone greyhounds beside its porch-- supporters of the arms of that old family from which the Westcotes had purchased Bayfield; and the Orange Room from a tradition that William of Orange had spent a night there on his march from Torbay.

There may have been truth in the tradition; the room at any rate preserved in it window-hangings of orange-yellow, and a deep fringe of the same hue festooning the musicians' gallery.

While serving Axcester for ball, rout, and general assembly-room, it had been admittedly dismal--its slate-coloured walls scarred and patched with new plaster, and relieved only by a gigantic painting of the Royal Arms on panel in a blackened frame; its ceiling garnished with four pendants in plaster, like bride- cake ornaments inverted.
To-day, as she stepped across the threshold, Dorothea hesitated between stopping her ears and rubbing her eyes.