Oddly enough--I suppose Matilda was on her mettle--the house seemed quieter when I came home.

The children were in bed.

I smelt something good from the kitchen.
Don't imagine that we shall not be able to do without you, child." Mary, who knew no more of the capable charwoman than Walter Gray did, looked on this speech of her father's as a mere string of tender subterfuges.

She said nothing, but her eyes rested on her grey woollen skirt, faded by wear and the weather, and she had an unchildish sense of the incongruity of her presence as a visitor in Lady Anne's house.
Walter Gray's glance roamed over his young daughter.

He saw nothing of her dreary attire.