Lubin had been requisitioned to provide a special supply of the freshest and finest flowers for the drawing-room, and she had herself gone to the pastrycook's to order the cheese-cakes and cream-tarts on which the expected visitor was to be regaled.

Of course she kept on telling herself all the time what a foolish old woman she was, and how silly Mr Ogilvie would think her if he only knew of all her little fussy preparations; men who had knocked about the world hated to be fidgeted over and made much of, and no doubt it was quite natural they should.

And then she went bustling off to impress on Martha the expediency of giving the silver tea-service an extra polish, and to be sure and see that the toast was crisp and fresh.

When at last she sat down with a book in front of her in order to pass the time she found her attention wandering, and her thoughts recurring to the last occasion on which she had seen Granville Ogilvie.

He had been rather a fine-looking young man in those days--tall, straight, and well set up; and well she remembered the whimsical way he had of speaking, the humorous glance of his eye, and those baffling intonations of voice that made it so difficult for her to be sure whether he were in jest or earnest.