Stephen Lorraine was content to visit his chagrin solely upon Guy. His manner towards Aldyth could not have been kinder than it was on the following day. He was indeed never really cross with her. The very sight of her seemed to charm away his ill-humour, and he was at his best when she was present. In spite of the strain to which it was often subjected, Aldyth had a genuine affection for her grand-uncle, and never failed to show him the tender reverence youth owes to age, so it was little wonder she exercised a softening influence on him.
The morning was clear and cold. A silvery rime sparkled on the grass and on the bare boughs of the trees; the pond was frozen so hard that skating seemed a near possibility; the tame birds fluttered to and fro before the house, eagerly picking up the crumbs scattered for them on the hard, glittering gravel. It was just the morning for a walk, and at a hint from her uncle, Aldyth ran to put on her strong boots, and the cosy sealskin jacket and cap which had been his present to her on the previous Christmas.
Old Stephen, fresh and ruddy despite his four-score years, minded the cold no more than a young man. Followed by his dogs, he made the round of the grounds with Aldyth, inspected the stables, and visited the stack-yard and farm buildings, which were at some distance from the Hall. She asked questions which drew forth long explanations from him; he pointed out sundry improvements he intended making, talking of his plans with the freedom of one who knows he has an interested listener. He told Aldyth much that she had heard before; but she was willing to listen to it again, especially when he began to go back, as old men are wont to do, to his early days and tell her tales of his boyhood, mingled with recollections of the mother whom it was evident he had tenderly loved.
"The old place looks well to-day," he remarked, as, returning by a side walk through the shrubbery, they came in view of the house shining in the full radiance of the morning sun; "there can be no place like it for me. Boy and man, I've known it for eighty years. There are not many men, I imagine, as old as I am, who can say they have lived in the same house all their days."
"No, indeed," said Aldyth, to whom such an unvarying experience seemed by no means desirable.
"My father and his father lived here before me," continued her uncle. "I should be sorry to think of any but Lorraines dwelling under that roof. Aldyth, I hope you will never change your name. I have always looked forward to your making your home at Wyndham some day."
Aldyth coloured hotly. Listening to talk of the kind familiar to her from her uncle, she had forgotten her dread of his touching upon this subject. She longed to say something that should make him understand how impossible was the idea he cherished, but no suitable words suggested themselves.
They entered the house by one of the drawing room windows which stood open. A fire had been kindled in the grate, and lent a little cheer to the melancholy, forsaken-looking room, with its faded drab furniture. There were no curtains to the windows; the room was guiltless of drapery of any kind, and lacked all the pretty, dainty decorations with which a lady adorns her sitting room. Old Stephen, glancing round, seemed suddenly to become aware of the barrenness and inelegance.
"Ah," he said, with an air of regret, "it was a pretty room once, but now it wants a little refurbishing badly. Somehow, only a woman seems to understand what a room requires to make it look right. And there has been no mistress at Wyndham since she passed away, and that's nigh upon fifty years now."
He pointed, as he spoke, to the portrait of his mother, hanging above the mantelshelf—a handsome, motherly woman, in the high mob-cap and snowy kerchief worn by matrons of her day. Aldyth had often looked at the picture of her great-grandmother, but she turned her eyes on it again with unfeigned interest.