round on the bare boards, and dropping a curtsey to the Romney. "But
never mind, Augustina--we shall get on quite properly. Now, aren't there
a great many more rooms to see?"

Augustina rose uncertainly. "There is the chapel, of course," she said,
"and Alan's study----"

"Oh! we needn't go there," said Laura hastily. "But show me the chapel."

Mr. Helbeck was still absent, and they had been exploring Bannisdale. It
was a melancholy progress they had been making through a house that had
once--when Augustina left it--stood full of the hoardings and the
treasures of generations, and was now empty and despoiled.

It was evident that, for his sister's welcome, Mr. Helbeck had gathered
into the drawing-room, as into her bedroom upstairs, the best of what
still remained to him. Chairs and tables, and straight-lined sofas, some
of one date, some of another, collected from the garrets and remote
corners of the old house, and covered with the oddest variety of faded
stuffs, had been stiffly set out by Mrs. Denton upon an old Turkey
carpet, whereof the rents and patches had been concealed as much as
possible. Here at least was something of a cosmos--something of order and
of comfort.

The hall too, and the dining-room, in spite of their poor new
furnishings, were still human and habitable. But most of the rooms on
which Laura and Mrs. Fountain had been making raid were like that first
one Laura had visited, mere homes of lumber and desolation. Blinds drawn;
dust-motes dancing in the stray shafts of light that struck across the
gloom of the old walls and floors. Here and there some lingering fragment