Lady Sarah took Rhoda by the hand, and brought her to the bed, and they both kissed the boy before they left him. He was as much surprised, Rhoda could not but feel, as she herself was, at the warmth of his mother’s manner to the newcomer in the household.
Lady Sarah turned with a most graceful movement to the girl as they went out of the room.
“Nothing could have pleased me better,” said she quite earnestly, “than to find he has some one with him to whom he can take a fancy. It’s half the battle, with a poor child like Caryl, to have faces about him that he likes.”
“It’s very kind of you to say so.”
“I suppose they didn’t show you my rooms?” she went on. “Really you must see them. Come with me.”
“Oh, some other time, Lady Sarah. You must be dreadfully tired after your journey!”
“Tired! Not a bit. I’m never tired. Come. I insist.”
She carried Rhoda off to her own suite of apartments; and the girl was charmed, as indeed she was prepared to be, with the sumptuous elegance and refinement of taste, which were everywhere apparent in the furniture and fittings of the beautiful suite of rooms on the first floor which were specially consecrated to the use of the mistress of the house.
All was as different as possible from the richness and heaviness which were the prevailing notes downstairs. Lady Sarah explained this by saying that she had studied her husband’s taste in the fitting up of the library, study and dining-room, as those were the only rooms in which he took an interest.
“I didn’t like to part with all the old things. It would have broken his heart, for one thing; and for another, the old furniture, though of course it’s just not old enough, is not so bad after all, and its mature years give a sort of dignity even to mahogany. But up here I am queen, and I have everything just as I like it. Come and see these sweet little French water-colours. Aren’t they too divy for words?”