The wintry sunshine smiled in at all the windows of her handsome house, and made it cheerful even though the blinds were drawn down.

The robins twittered in the evergreens outside, and the maids had their little jokes as usual over their sewing, though they spoke in lowered tones.

No great and terrible change seemed to have happened to any one but Hetty, except indeed to Scamp, and it was plain that he suffered only for Hetty's sake.
On the day when Mrs.Rushton's relations met at Amber Hill Hetty sat in the housekeeper's room in a little straw chair at the fire, with Scamp clasped in her arms and her head resting against his.

She felt instinctively that her fate was being sealed upstairs.

Indeed a few words which had passed between Grant and the housekeeper, and which she had accidentally overheard, assured her that such would be the case.
"If Mrs.Rushton has left her nothing," said Grant, "she'll be out on the world again, as she was before.