all the cousins, rose graciously, put aside the slippers, and gave him
two fingers. She was astonished to find him not nearly so shy as he used
to be: wonderfully improved; at his ease, cheerful, animated. The man
now was in his right place, and following hope on the bent of
inclination. Few men are shy when in their right places. He asked after
Lady Montfort. She was in her own small sitting-room, writing letters,
--letters that Carr Vipont had entreated her to write,--correspondence
useful to the House of Vipont. Before long, however, a servant entered,
to say that Lady Montfort would be very happy to see Mr. Morley. George
followed the servant into that unpretending sitting-room, with its simple
chintzes and quiet bookshelves,--room that would not have been too fine
for a cottage.




CHAPTER X.

In every life, go it fast, go it slow, there are critical pausing-
places. When the journey is renewed the face of the country is
changed.

How well she suited that simple room; herself so simply dressed, her
marvellous beauty so exquisitely subdued! She looked at home there,
as if all of home that the house could give were there collected.

She had finished and sealed the momentous letters, and had come, with a
sense of relief, from the table at the farther end of the room, on which
those letters, ceremonious and conventional, had been written,--come to
the window, which, though mid-winter, was open, and the redbreast, with