For Christian, she sat by the fire, where her husband had placed her,
absently taking in the externalities--warm, somber, luxurious--which, in
all human probability, was now her home for life. For life! Did that
overpowering sense of the inevitable--so maddening to some, so
quieting to others--cause all small things to sink to their natural
smallness, and all painful things to touch her less painfully than
otherwise they would have been felt? It might have been.

Barker returned with the information that all the children were fast
asleep, but nurse said, "Of course Dr. Grey could come up if he
pleased."

"Let me go too," begged Christian. "Little Oliver will look so pretty in
his bed."

Dr. Grey smiled. It was a rare thing to be a whole fortnight away from
his children, and all the father's heart was in his loving eyes. "Come
away, then," he said, all his cheerful looks returning. "Aunts, you will
give us our tea when we return."

"Well, she does make herself at home!" cried Miss Gascoigne,
indignantly, almost before the door had closed.

Miss Grey knitted half a row with a perplexed air, and then, as if she
had lighted upon a perfect solution of the difficulty, said lightly, "But
then, you see, dear Henrietta, she _is_ at home."

Home! Through that chilly gallery, preceded by Barker and his wax-
lights; stared upon by those grim portraits, till more than once she
started as if she had seen a ghost; up narrow, steep stone stair-cases,