blinds, a glazed verandah sheltering a tesselated walk, sloping banks and
terraces, on a very small scale, stone vases full of flowers, a tiny
fountain sparkling in the afternoon sun.

This was Dr. Rylance's country retreat. It had been a yeoman's cottage,
plain, substantial and homely as the yeoman and his household. The doctor
had added a Gothic front, increased the number of rooms, but not the
general convenience of the dwelling. He had been his own architect, and
the result was a variety of levels and a breakneck arrangement of stairs
at all manner of odd corners, so ingenious in their peril to life and
limb that they might be supposed to have been designed as traps for the
ignorant stranger.

'Don't say good-bye, Ranie,' said Bessie, when Miss Rylance had alighted,
and was making her adieux at the carriage door; 'you'll come over to
dinner, won't you, dear? Your father won't be down till Saturday. You'll
be dreadfully dull at home.'

'Thanks, dear, no; I'd rather spend my first evening at home. I'm never
dull,' answered Urania, with her air of superiority.

'What a queer girl you are!' exclaimed Bessie, frankly. 'I should be
wretched if I found myself alone in a house. Do run over in the evening,
at any rate. We are going to have lots of fun.'

Miss Rylance shuddered. She knew what was meant by lots of fun at The
Knoll; a romping game at croquet, or the newly-established lawn-tennis,
with girls in short petticoats and boys in Eton jackets; a raid upon
the plum-trees on the crumbling red brick walls of the fine old
kitchen-garden; winding up with a boisterous bout at hide-and-seek in the