He had left his door ajar and had not heard anyone enter. But presently—it may be that he had fallen into a doze, or a state of passive contemplation very like one—he found Judith standing by the arm-chair in which he was reclining—oh, so lazily and pleasantly! She looked as if she might have been there for some little while, some few moments at all events, and she was gazing out on the fairness of the evening with a smile on her lips.
"I've been putting Margaret to bed—she was allowed an extra hour in your honour—and then I just looked in here to see if you wanted anything."
"I shall make a point of wanting as many things as I possibly can. I love being waited on, and I've never been able to get enough of it. I shall keep you busy! Judith, to think that I was once going to desert Hilsey! Well, I suppose we shall be turned out some day." He sighed lightly and humorously over the distant prospect of ejection by Margaret, grown-up, married perhaps, and the châtelaine.
"If you want to know your future, I happen to be able to tell you," said Judith. "Margaret arranged it while she was getting into bed."
"Oh, let's hear this! It's important—most important!" he cried, sitting up.
"If you don't want to go on living here, you're to have a house built for you up on the hill there. On the other side of the wood, I insisted; otherwise you'd spoil the view horribly! But Margaret didn't seem to mind about that."
"Yes, I think I must be behind the wood—especially if I'm to have a modern artistic cottage."
"There you're to live—when you're not in London, being praised by judges—and you're to come down the hill to tea every day of the week."
"It doesn't seem a bad idea—only she might sometimes make it dinner!"
"She'll make it dinner when she's bigger, I daresay. At present, for her, you see, dinner doesn't count."