Nothing looked out of place, for the room with its gracious proportions took all the incongruities--the family Raeburns, the Queen Anne cabinets, the miniatures, the Victorian atrocities, the weak water-colour sketches, the framed photographs of whiskered gentlemen and ladies with bustles, and made them into one pleasing whole.

There is no charm in a room furnished from showrooms, though it be correct in every detail to the period chosen.

Much more human is the room that is full of things, ugly, perhaps, in themselves but which link one generation to another.

The ottoman worked so laboriously by a ringleted great-aunt stood with its ugly mahogany legs beside a Queen Anne chair, over whose faded wool-work seat a far-off beauty had pricked her dainty fingers--and both of the workers were Hopes: while by Pamela's side stood a fire-screen stitched by Augusta, the last of the Hopes.

"I wonder," said Mrs.Hope, breaking the silence, "what has become of Lewis Elliot?
I haven't heard from him since he went away.