Hintock, that makes her so easy about the trees," said Mrs.
Melbury.

When dinner was over, Grace took a candle and began to ramble
pleasurably through the rooms of her old home, from which she had
latterly become wellnigh an alien. Each nook and each object
revived a memory, and simultaneously modified it. The chambers
seemed lower than they had appeared on any previous occasion of
her return, the surfaces of both walls and ceilings standing in
such relations to the eye that it could not avoid taking
microscopic note of their irregularities and old fashion. Her own
bedroom wore at once a look more familiar than when she had left
it, and yet a face estranged. The world of little things therein
gazed at her in helpless stationariness, as though they had tried
and been unable to make any progress without her presence. Over
the place where her candle had been accustomed to stand, when she
had used to read in bed till the midnight hour, there was still
the brown spot of smoke. She did not know that her father had
taken especial care to keep it from being cleaned off.

Having concluded her perambulation of this now uselessly
commodious edifice, Grace began to feel that she had come a long
journey since the morning; and when her father had been up
himself, as well as his wife, to see that her room was comfortable
and the fire burning, she prepared to retire for the night. No
sooner, however, was she in bed than her momentary sleepiness took
itself off, and she wished she had stayed up longer. She amused
herself by listening to the old familiar noises that she could
hear to be still going on down-stairs, and by looking towards the
window as she lay. The blind had been drawn up, as she used to