"Won't you sit nearer to the window?
We are rather proud of our view at this time of year," said Miss Raeburn to Marcella, taking her visitor's jacket from her as she spoke, and laying it aside.

"Lady Winterbourne is late, but she will come, I am sure.

She is very precise about engagements." Marcella moved her chair nearer to the great bow-window, and looked out over the sloping gardens of the Court, and the autumn splendour of the woods girdling them in on all sides.

She held her head nervously erect, was not apparently much inclined to talk, and Miss Raeburn, who had resumed her knitting within a few paces of her guest, said to herself presently after a few minutes' conversation on the weather and the walk from Mellor: "Difficult--decidedly difficult--and too much manner for a young girl.

But the most picturesque creature I ever set eyes on!" Lord Maxwell's sister was an excellent woman, the inquisitive, benevolent despot of all the Maxwell villages; and one of the soundest Tories still left to a degenerate party and a changing time.