She was not an emotional woman, Mrs. Creswell; but her heart beat rather faster than its placid wont as she crossed the threshold of the gate, and stepped at once into the garden, where so many of the scenes of her early history had been passed. There was the lawn, as untidy as in her poor father's days, bordered by the big elm-trees, under whose shadow she had walked in the dull summer evenings, as the hum from the dormitories settled down into silence and slumber; and her lover was free to join her there, and to walk with her until their frugal supper was announced. There were the queer star and pear-shaped flower-beds, the virginia-creeper waving in feathery elegance along the high wall, the other side of which was put to far more practical purposes--bore stucco instead of climbers, and re-echoed to the balls of the fives-players. There were the narrow walks, the old paintless gate-bell, that lived behind iron bars, the hideous stone pine-apples on either side of the door, just as she remembered them.
In the drawing-room, too, where she was received by Mrs. Benthall, with the exception of a smell of stale tobacco, there was no difference: the old paper on the walls, the old furniture, the old dreary outlook.
After the first round of visiting talk, Marian asked Gertrude how she liked her new home.
Gerty was, if anything, frank.
"Well, I like it pretty well," she said. "Of course it's all new to me, and the boys are great fun."
"Are they?" said Marian, with an odd smile; "they must have changed a great deal. I know I didn't think them 'great fun' in my day."
"Well, I mean for a little time. Of course they'd bore one awfully very soon, and I think this place would bore one frightfully after a time, so dull and grim, isn't it?"
"It's very quiet; but you mustn't let it bore you, as you call it."
"Oh, that won't matter much, because it will only be for so short a time."
"So short a time! Are you going to leave Helmingham?"