Over the mantel hung a painting of Haward and his mother, done when he was six years old.

Beneath the laughing child and the smiling lady, young and flower-crowned, were crossed two ancient swords.

In the middle of the room stood a heavy table, and pushed back, as though some one had lately risen from it, was an armchair of Russian leather.

Books lay upon the table; one of them open, with a horn snuffbox keeping down the leaf.
Haward seated himself in the great chair, and looked around him with a thoughtful and melancholy smile.

He could not clearly remember his mother.
The rings upon her fingers and her silvery laughter were all that dwelt in his mind, and now only the sound of that merriment floated back to him and lingered in the room.