No, my dear, you needn't deny it.

I see you've got a headache." Norah's dark, handsome face brightened into a smile--then lightly clouded again with its accustomed quiet reserve.
"A very little headache; not half enough to make me regret the concert," she said, and walked away by herself to the window.
On the far side of a garden and paddock the view overlooked a stream, some farm buildings which lay beyond, and the opening of a wooded, rocky pass (called, in Somersetshire, a Combe), which here cleft its way through the hills that closed the prospect.

A winding strip of road was visible, at no great distance, amid the undulations of the open ground; and along this strip the stalwart figure of Mr.Vanstone was now easily recognizable, returning to the house from his morning walk.

He flourished his stick gayly, as he observed his eldest daughter at the window.

She nodded and waved her hand in return, very gracefully and prettily--but with something of old-fashioned formality in her manner, which looked strangely in so young a woman, and which seemed out of harmony with a salutation addressed to her father.
The hall-clock struck the adjourned breakfast-hour.