After which Edith retired, weary and worn out, and troubled in many
ways.

* * * * *




CHAPTER VI.


WALLED IN.

Very early on the following day Edith arose, and found Mrs. Dunbar
already moving about. She remarked that she had heard Edith dressing
herself, and had prepared a breakfast for her. This little mark of
attention was very grateful to Edith, who thanked Mrs. Dunbar quite
earnestly, and found the repast a refreshing one. After this, as it was
yet too early to think of calling on Miss Plympton, she wandered about
the house. The old nooks and corners dear to memory were visited once
more. Familiar scenes came back before her. Here was the nursery, there
her mother's room, in another place the library. There, too, was the
great hall up stairs, with pictures on each side of ancestors who went
back to the days of the Plantagenets. There were effigies in armor of
knights who had fought in the Crusades and in the Wars of the Roses; of
cavaliers who had fought for King Charles; of gallant gentlemen who had
followed their country's flag under the burning sun of India, over the
sierras of Spain, and in the wilderness of America. And of all these she
was the last, and all that ancestral glory was bound up in her, a weak
and fragile girl. Deeply she regretted at that moment that she was not a