To Alice, accustomed to the vulgarity of suburban villas with Italian campaniles, a florid lodge a stone's throw from the house, darkened too with smoke and tawdry with paint, this old-world dwelling was a patch of wonderland.

Her eyes drank in the beauty of the place--the great blue backs of hill beyond, the acres of sweet pasture, the primeval woods.
"Is this Glenavelin ?" she cried.

"Oh, what a place to live in!" "Yes, it's very pretty, dear." And Lady Manorwater, who possessed half a dozen houses up and down the land, patted her guest's arm and looked with pleasure on the flushed girlish face.
Two hours later, Alice, having completed dressing, leaned out of her bedroom window to drink in the soft air of evening.

She had not brought a maid, and had refused her hostess's offer to lend her her own on the ground that maids were a superfluity.

It was her desire to be a very practical young person, a scorner of modes and trivialities, and yet she had taken unusual care with her toilet this evening, and had spent many minutes before the glass.