Now all is complete, and the last train from London being due half an
hour ago Sir Adrian is standing on the steps of his hall-door anxiously
awaiting some of his guests.

There is even a touch of genuine impatience in his manner, which could
hardly be attributed to the ordinary longing of a young man to see a few
of his friends. Sir Adrian's anxiety is open and undisguised, and there
is a little frown upon his brow. Presently his face brightens as be
hears the roll of carriage-wheels. When the carriage turns the corner
of the drive, and the horses are pulled up at the hall door, Sir Adrian
sees a fair face at the window that puts to flight all the fears he has
been harboring for the last half hour.

"You have come?" he says delightedly, running down the steps and opening
the carriage door himself. "I am so glad! I began to think the train had
run away with you, or that the horses had bolted."

"Such a journey as it has been!" exclaims a voice not belonging to the
face that had looked from the carriage at Sir Adrian. "It has been
tiresome to the last degree. I really don't know when I felt so
fatigued!"

A little woman, small and fair, steps languidly to the ground as she
says this, and glances pathetically at her host. She is beautifully "got
up," both in dress and complexion, and at a first glance appears almost
girlish. Laying her hand in Sir Adrian's, she lets it rest there, as
though glad to be at her journey's end, conveying at the same time by
a gentle pressure of her taper fingers the fact that she is even more
glad that the end of her journey has brought her to him. She looks up
at him with her red lips drooping as if tired, and with a bewildered